Even the master's degree on her rsum was fabricated. Between 2005 and 2013, Sonja Farak was performing laboratory tests at a state drug lab in Amherst while under the influence of narcotics. In a March 2013 One colleague called her the "super woman of the lab. The lone dissenting justice called the decision "too little and too late" and argued that the severity of the scandal required tossing all the cases. The surveillance of the chemists as well as the standards and the confiscated drugs has also been increased considerably. As he leafed through three boxes of evidence, he found the substance abuse worksheets and diaries. Scalia may as well have been describing Dookhan. She received an email from a detective weeks after Farak's arrest containing detailed notes Farak made in conjunction with her own drug treatment, pointedly identified as "FARAK Admissions" but failed to disclose them for years. She later called this dismissive exchange a "plea to God.". Our streamlined software is accessible wherever and whenever you . After weeks of hearings, a "special hearing officer" selected by the board recommended potential sanctions against them all. It features the true story of Sonja Farak, a former state drug lab chemist in Massachusetts who was arrested in 2013 for consuming the drugs she was supposed to test and tampering with the evidence to cover up her tracks. The Board of Bar Overseers (BBO) is reviewing the actions of three prosecutors in the investigation of the scandal to determine whether any of them deliberately withheld potentially exculpatory evidence. B. ut when Penates lawyer tried to obtain the documents not certain what was in them before his clients 2013 trial, he was rebuffed by state prosecutors who said the papers were irrelevant according to emails included in investigative reports unsealed earlier this month. noted the mental health worksheets found in Faraks car, which had not been released. May 2003 started working in Hinton drug lab p. 14. Two Massachusetts drug-testing laboratory technicians are caught tampering with and falsifying drug evidence, and prosecutors are reluctant to disclose the full extent of their criminal behavior. State police took these worksheets from Farak's car in January 2013, the same day they arrested her for tampering with evidence and for cocaine possession. Among the papers they seized were handwritten worksheets Farak completed for drug-abuse therapy. In a letter filed with the Supreme Court, Julianne Nassif, a lab supervisor, wrote that Hinton had "appropriate quality control" measures. Both have since left the attorney general's office for other government positions. Sonja Farak in How to Fix a Drug Scandal. mentioned a New England Patriots game on Saturday, Dec. 24 which corresponded with a game date in 2011. Relying on an investigation conducted by state police, the judges Privacy Policy | Instead, Kaczmarek proceeded as if the substance abuse was a recent development. Subscribe to Reason Roundup, a wrap up of the last 24 hours of news, delivered fresh each morning. "No reasonable individual could have failed to appreciate the unlawfulness of [Kaczmarek's] actions in these circumstances," Robertson wrote in her ruling. How to Fix a Drug Scandal: With Shannon O'Neill, Karl Kenzler, Paul Solotaroff, Scott Allen. She is not active on any social media platform and has kept her distance from the press. The twin Massachusetts drug lab scandals are unprecedented in the sheer number of cases thrown out because of forensic misconduct. As a teenager, she had attempted suicide. The four years since Ryan discovered Farak's diaries have been a bitter fight over this question of culpabilitywhether Kaczmarek, Foster, and their colleagues were merely careless or whether they deliberately hid crucial evidence. A few months before her arrest, Farak's counselor recommended in-patient rehab. T he day Sonja Farak's world unraveled - the day a crack pipe and sliced evidence bags of cocaine were found at her workstation - started like many others: she attended court. Several defense attorneys who called for the Velis-Merrigan investigation say the former judges and their state police investigators got it wrong. But unlike with Dookhan, there were no independent investigations of Farak or the Amherst lab. The disgraced chemist was sentenced to less than two years behind bars in 2014, following her guilty pleas for stealing cocaine from the lab. Months after Farak pleaded guilty in January 2014, Ryan filed a concluded there was no evidence of prosecutorial misconduct or obstruction of justice in matters related to the Farak case. GBH News Center for Investigative Reporting. Lets find out. 3.3.2023 5:30 PM, Joe Lancaster A final decision is still pending and must be approved by the state Supreme Judicial Court. Foster's first stepper ethical obligations and office protocolshould have been to look through the evidence to see what had already been handed over. Asked for comment, Foster in January objected through an attorney that the judge never gave her an opportunity to defend herself and that his ruling left an "indelible stain on her reputation.". Reporting for this story was supported by the Fund for Investigative Journalism. Foster consulted Kaczmarek about the files contents, according to an In 2012, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court foundegregious prosecutorial misconduct after an assistant district attorney withheldevidence a judge had ordered him toproduce for the defense of a teenageraccused of statutory rape. Martha Coakley, then attorney general for the state, argued in Melendez-Diaz that a chemist's certificate contains only "neutral, objective facts." Exhausted from the ongoing scandal in Boston, state officials were desperate for damage control. One reason that didn't happen, he says: "the determination Coakley and her team made the morning after Farak's arrest that her misconduct did not affect the due process rights of any Farak defendants." She had been accused of intentional infliction of emotional distress in addition to the conspiracy to violate [Penates] civil rights.. State officials rushed to condemn her loudly and publicly. Patrick said "the most important take-home" was that "no individual's due process rights were compromised.". concluded she was usually high while working in the lab for more than eight years before her arrest in January 2013 and started stealing samples seven years ago. Join us. a certification of drug samples in Penates case on Dec. 22, 2011. | Psychotherapy Progress Notes, as shown above, can be populated using clinical codes before they are linked with a client's appointments for easier admin and use in sessions. As . Farak started at Amherst lab in Aug 2004 p. 32. The information showed that Farak sought therapy for drug addiction and that her misconduct had been ongoing for years. In November 2013, Dookhan pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice, tampering with evidence, and perjury. This past Tuesday, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court filed a report saying that more than 24,000 convictions in 16,449 cases have been dismissed as a result of foul play by a former state drug lab chemist. You can try, Suspensions and a reprimand proposed for prosecutors admonished in drug lab scandal. 3.3.2023 4:50 PM, 2022 Reason Foundation | Shown results suggesting otherwise, she copped to contaminating samples "a few times" during the previous "two to three years.". GBH News brings you the stories, local voices, and big ideas that shape our world. "Thousands of defendants were kept in the dark for far too long about the government misconduct in their cases," the ACLU and the Committee for Public Counsel Services, the state's public defense agency, wrote in a motion. Officials recognized the worksheets for what they were: near-indisputable confessions. ", Everyone Practices Cancel Culture | Opinion, Deplatforming Free Speech is Dangerous | Opinion. Meanwhile, other top prosecutors, including Coakley, largely escaped criticism for their collective failure to hand over evidence that they were bound by constitutional mandate to share with defendants. The Hinton drug lab, operated by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, appears to have been run largely on the honor system. "The mental health worksheets constituted admissions by the state lab chemist assigned to analyze the samples seized in Plaintiffs case that she was stealing and using lab samples to feed a drug addiction at the time she was testing and certifying the samples in Plaintiffs case, including, in one instance, on the very day that she certified a sample," Robertson's ruling reads. A drug chemist . Farak had started taking drugs on the job within months of joining the lab. Penate alleged Kaczmarek's actions violated his "Brady rights," which require prosecutors to turn over potentially exculpatory evidence to defense counsel. Kaczmarek is one of three former prosecutors whose role in the prosecution of Farak later became the focus of several lawsuits and disciplinary hearings. In January 2014, she pleaded guilty to evidence tampering and drug possession. Kaczmarek, along with former assistant attorneys general Kris Foster and John Verner, all face possible sanctions. Between Farak and Dookhanwho's also featured in How to Fix a Drug Scandal38,000 wrongfully convicted cases have been dismissed, according to the Washington Post. The Dookhan prosecution was barely underway, a grand jury having returned indictments a few weeks earlier. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); NEXT: Zoning Makes the Green New Deal Impossible. Prosecutors have an obligation to give the defense exculpatory evidence including anything that could weaken evidence against defendants. "A forensic analyst responding to a request from a law enforcement official may feel pressureor have an incentiveto alter the evidence in a manner favorable to the prosecution.". In addition to ordering the dismissal of many thousands of cases, the Supreme Judicial Court directed a committee to draft a "checklist" for prosecutors, clarifying their obligation to turn over evidence to defendants. READ NEXT: Netflixs How to Fix a Drug Scandal Story: 5 Fast Facts, Sonja Farak: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know, Please review our privacy policy here: https://heavy.com/privacy-policy/, Copyright 2023 Heavy, Inc. All rights reserved. Sonja Farak is in the grip of a rubbed-raw depression that hasn't responded to medication. One of the reasons for the decrepit state and standard of the Amherst lab was the lack of funds. Kaczmarek was now juggling two scandals on opposite sides of the state. A local prosecutor also asked Ballou to look into a case Farak had tested as far back as 2005. Hearings could help decide how many of thousands of convictions tainted by Farak's testing may be overturned. After the Supreme Court's decision, a skeptical colleague started tracking how many microscope slides Dookhan used to test samples for cocaine. The next month, Ryan asked again. Instead, Kaczmarek provided copies to Farak's own attorney and asked that all evidence from Farak's car, including the worksheets, be kept away from prying defense attorneys representing the thousands of people convicted of drug crimes based on Farak's work. It's been like this forever, or at least since girlhood. Dookhan had seeded public mistrust in the criminal justice system, which "now becomes an issue in every criminal trial for every defendant.". In 2009, Farak branched out to the lab's amphetamine, phentermine, and cocaine standards. Regarding the cases that she had handled, the Massachusetts courts threw out every case in the Amherst lab during her tenure. It features the true story of Sonja Farak, a former state drug lab chemist in Massachusetts who was arrested in 2013 for consuming the drugs she was supposed to test and tampering with the. They never searched Farak's computer or her home. For people with disabilities needing assistance with the Public Files, contact Glenn Heath at 617-300-3268. As federal food benefits decline, Mass. I felt euphoric, Kogan wrote of Farak. 3.3.2023 5:45 PM, Jacob Sullum And when the tests she did run came back negative, Dookhan added controlled substances to the vials. Poetically, that landmark case originated from the Hinton lab, although Dookhan didn't conduct the analysis in question. The state's top court took an even harsher view, ruling in October 2018 that the attorney general's office as an institution was responsible for the prosecutorial misconduct of its former employees. In 2019, the chemist was spotted at federal court in Springfield, MA , attending a civil case. Dookhan's transgressions got more press attention: Her story broke first, she immediately confessed, and her misdeeds took place in big-city Boston rather than the western reaches of the state. "It is critical that all parties have unquestioned faith in that process from the beginning so that they will have full confidence in the conclusions drawn at the end," Coakley said. Her notes record on-the-job drug use ranging from small nips of the lab's baseline. Many more are likely to follow, with the total expected to exceed 50,000. In an August 2013 email, Ryan asked Assistant Attorney General Kris Foster to review evidence taken from Farak. The lawsuit names Kaczmarek, Farak and three members of the state police. Release year: 2020. Kaczmarek got a note from Sgt. Investigators found that Sonja Farak tested drug samples and testified in court while under the influence of methamphetamines, ketamine, cocaine, LSD and other drugs between 2005 and 2013. another filing. Velis said he stood by the findings. Netflix's latest true-crime series, How to Fix a Drug Scandal, dives deep into a shocking Massachusetts scandal, one that started in the humble confines of an underfunded drug testing lab and ended with an entire system in question. "I dont know how the Velis report reached the conclusion it did after reviewing the underlying email documents, said Randy Gioia, deputy chief counsel at the Committee for Public Counsel Services, the states public defender office. Gov. Joseph Ballou, lead investigator for the state police, called them the most important documents from the car. The court also dismissed all meth cases processed at the lab since Farak started in 2004. A scandal erupts, raising questions for the thousands of defendants in her cases. Our posture is to not delve into the twists and turns of the investigation or the report and to let it stand on its own, Merrigan said. When defense lawyers asked to see evidence for themselves, state prosecutors smeared them as pursuing a "fishing expedition.". "These drugswere tested fairly," Coakley claimed the day after Farak's arrest. That motion was denied, and the notice letters will explain Farak's tampering without any mention of prosecutorial misconduct. Meier put the number at 40,323 defendants, though some have called that an overestimate. El 6 de enero de 2014, Farak se declar culpable de los cargos en su contra. Damning evidence reveals drug lab chemist Sonja Farak's addictions. Dookhan was sentenced to prison in 2013. More than 24,000 convictions in 16,449 cases tainted by former state chemist Sonja Farak have been dismissed in a court case brought by the ACLU of Massachusetts, the Committee of Public Counsel Services (CPCS), and law firm Fick & Marx LLP. From the April 2023 issue, Billy Binion Despite clear indications that Farak used a variety of narcoticsher worksheets mentioned phentermine, and that vial of powdered oxycodone-acetaminophen had been found at her benchKaczmarek also proceeded as if crack cocaine were Farak's sole drug. Penate and other defendants are asking see all of Fosters emails regarding Farak and other materials relating to the handling of evidence in the chemist's case. Since then, she has kept a low profile. But in a Her job consisted of testing drugs that have. Investigators either missed or declined opportunities to dig very deep. ordered a report on the history of her illicit behavior. Farak signed a certification of drug samples in Penate's case on Dec. 22, 2011. Due to the conviction, prosecutors were forced to dismiss more than . When she got married, it turned out that her wife, too, suffered from her own demons, and their collective anguish made Sonja desperate for a reprieve from this life. Both scandals undercut confidence in the criminal justice system and the validity of forensic analysis. Foster Democratic Gov. As extensively detailed in How to Fix a Drug Scandal, Farak was arrested on January 19, 2013. She continued to experience suicidal thoughts, but instead of going through with those thoughts, she started taking the drugs that she would be testing at work. "First, of course, are the defendants, who when charged in the criminal justice system have the right to expect that they will be given due process and there will be fair and accurate information used in any prosecution against them." Get all the latest from Sanditon on GBH Passport, How one Brookline studio helps artists with disabilities thrive. A status hearing on Penate's suit, which was filed in 2017, is scheduled for July. After contemplating another suicide, she settled on drugs, and the fact that she had such easy access to it at her workplace made it easier for her to get lost in that world. But she worried they might be privileged as health information. But absent evidence of aggravating misconduct by prosecutors or cops, the majority ruled, Dookhan's tampering alone didn't justify a blanket dismissal of every case she had touched. The latest true crime offering from Netflix is the documentary series "How to Fix a Drug Scandal." It dives into the story of Sonja Farak, a chemist who worked for a Massachusetts state drug. She's no longer in prison, as Farak has served her sentence. memo to Judge Kinder the next week, Foster said she reviewed the file, and said every document in it had already been disclosed. Tens of thousands of criminal drug cases were dismissed as a result of misconduct by Dookhan and Farak. In the series, it's explained that Farak loved the energy the meth gave her. Massachusetts prosecutors withheld evidence of corrupt state narcotics testing for months from a defendant facing drug charges, and didnt release it until after his conviction, according to newly surfaced documents and emails. Each employee had a unique swipe card, but Farak simply used a physical key to get in after hours and on weekends. One thing that How to Fix a Drug Scandal makes clear is that it wasnt all Sonja Faraks fault. Rollins said it covers "a period of time in which either now disgraced chemist Annie Dookhan, or another convicted chemist Sonja Farak ," worked there. Instead, she submitted an intentionally vague letter to the judge claiming defense attorneys already had everything. motion on behalf of another client to see the evidence. From the March 2019 issue, "Tried to resist using @ work, but ended up failing," the forensic chemist scribbled on a diary worksheet she kept as part of her substance abuse therapy. What Did Sonja Farak Do, Exactly? At the time of her arrest, she had resided in 37 Laurel Park in Northampton. Thus, only defendants whose evidence she tested in the six-month window before her arrest could challenge their cases. . The results of that intake interview and notes from several of Farak's therapists all detailing Farak's drug use going back years were obtained by defense attorneys on behalf of . In her initial police interview, given at her dining room table, Dookhan said she "would never falsify" results "because it's someone's life on the line." Two drug lab chemists' shocking crimes cripple a state's judicial system and blur the lines of justice for lawyers, officials and thousands of inmates. After high school, Sonja went on to major in biochemistry at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in western Massachusetts. The last contact information provided by her, in response to Penates allegations, placed her residence in Hatfield, Massachusetts. Nassif put Dookhan on desk duty but allowed her to finish testing cases already on her plate, including some of the samples she had taken from the locker. The lax security and regulations of the place and the negligent supervision of the employees and the stock of standards are the reasons why Farak was encouraged to do what she did. For years, Sonja Farak was addicted to cocaine, methamphetamine, and amphetamines, the kind of drugs usually bought from street dealers in covert transactions that carry the constant risk of arrest. It didnt matter whether or not she was the one who did the testing or some other chemist. "Whether law enforcement officials overlooked these papers or intentionally suppressed them is a question for another day.". On a Friday afternoon in January 2013, a call came in to Coakley's office: "We have another Annie Dookhan out west.". Without even interviewing Foster, they determined there was "no evidence" of obstruction of justice by her, by Kaczmarek, or by any state prosecutor. Kaczmarek argued before the BBO, and in response to Penate's lawsuit, that she was focused on prosecuting Farak and not defendants, like Penate, whose criminal cases were affected by Farak's misconduct. Sonja Farak (Netflix) An ex-lab chemist Sonja Farak's negligence and misdeeds shocked US when she was arrested in 2013 for stealing and using drugs from the lab where she worked. Two Massachusetts drug lab technicians Sonja Farak and Annie Dookhan were caught tainting evidence in separate drug labs in different but equally shocking ways. Foster replied that because the investigation against Farak was ongoing, she couldnt let him see it. In the aftermath, the court felt it necessary to make clear that "no prosecutorhas the authority to decline to disclose exculpatory information.". The civil lawsuit was one of the last tied to prosecutors' disputedhandling of the case against disgraced ex-chemist Sonja Farak, who was convicted in 2014 of ingesting drug samples she was supposed to test at the Amherst state drug lab. In four 50-minute episodes, Netflix's latest shocker tells the story of Sonia Farak, a chemist who worked at a crime lab in Amherst, Massachusetts. Would love your thoughts, please comment. "The gravity of the present case cannot be overstated," Kaczmarek wrote in her memo recommending a prison sentence of five to seven years. But whether anyone investigated her conduct during a brief stint working at the state's Boston drug lab is at . Farak received a sentence of 18 months in jail and 5 years of probation. This very well could have been the end of the investigative trail but for a few stubborn defense lawyers, who appealed the ruling. Emma Camp Out of "an abundance of caution," Kaczmarek didn't present them to the grand jury that was convened to determine whether to indict Farak. Four months after Ryan found the worksheets, Judge Kinder To better estimate how many convictions will have to be reviewed because of Farak, the Supreme Judicial Court The attorney general's representative at these hearings was Assistant Attorney General Kris Foster, a recent hire. But without access to evidence showing how long Farak had been doing this, defendants with constitutional grounds for challenging their incarceration were held for months and even years longer than necessary. Shawn Musgrave is a reporter who was until recently based in Boston. In 2014, former Amherst drug lab chemist Sonja Farak was convicted and sentenced to 18 months in prison after it was discovered that she stole and used drugs that she was entrusted to test. This article originally appeared in print under the headline "The Chemists and the Cover-Up". Gioia called for evidentiary hearings so prosecutors can be asked about what they knew, when they knew it, and what they did with their knowledge., Luke Ryan, Penates trial lawyer, said that the state police officers working on the report failed to obtain an appropriate understanding of the events that transpired before they were assigned to this investigation.". A judge sentenced Dookhan to three years in prison; she was granted parole in April 2016. "The need to inform defendants of government misconduct does not disappear when that misconduct was committed by a government lawyer as opposed to a government chemist.". "Please don't let this get more complicated than we thought," Kaczmarek replied when Ballou, the lead investigator, flagged irregularities in Farak's analysis in a case featuring pain pills. 3.4.2023 8:00 AM, Reason Staff A hearing on their motions is scheduled next month. Kaczmarek argued the findings are subject to appeal. In "How to Fix a Drug Scandal," a new four-part Netflix docuseries, documentary filmmaker Erin Lee Carr presents the stories of Massachusetts drug lab chemists Annie Dookhan and Sonja Farak, and . In her June 17 ruling, U.S. Magistrate Judge Katherine Robertson dismissed former Assistant Attorney General Anne Kaczmarek's claims of qualified immunity a doctrine that gives legal immunity to some public officials accused of misconduct. State prosecutors gave Farak the immunity they had declined to grant two years earlier, then asked when she started analyzing samples while high. As a teenager, she had attempted suicide. In December 2011, after police in Springfield, Mass., had arrested Renaldo Penate for allegedly selling heroin, the drugs from that case were tested at a state drug lab by technician Sonja Farak. Robertson rejected Kaczmarek's claims she should not be held responsible for the turning over of exculpatory evidence because she was not part of the "prosecution team" in Penate's case. During the next four years, she would periodically sober up and then relapse. How to Fix A Drug Scandal takes a one-woman issue in a crumbling police drug lab and follows the way it blew up an entire legal system. Sonja Farak had admitted to stealing and using drugs from the drug lab where she worked as a chemist for around 9 years. . "Dookhan's consistently high testing volumes should have been a clear indication that a more thorough analysis and review of her work was needed," an internal review found. The place was closed as soon as Faraks crimes came to light. Ryan then filed a That settlement awaits approval by a judge. They pulled her aside as she walked back to the courthouse from her car, where she had smoked "a fair amount of crack" during her lunch break. Farak saw Kogan in 2009 and 2010, and her therapist wrote: She obtains the drugs from her job at the state drug lab, by taking portions of samples that have come in to be tested., Kogan also wrote that Farak told her she had taken methamphetamines at another lab in an old job, but she didnt get much from it. Kogan wrote that after moving to western [Massachusetts] for her job at the state drug lab, [Farak] tried it again and really liked it.

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