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"I remember actually sitting on the stand and looking at it," Farak said of her first time swiping from evidence in a trafficking case, "knowing that I had analyzed the sample and that I had then tampered with it.". In a letter filed with the Supreme Court, Julianne Nassif, a lab supervisor, wrote that Hinton had "appropriate quality control" measures. Cleverly omitting pronouns, she wrote that "after reviewing" the file, "every documenthas been disclosed." Faraks notes also In a separate opinion in October 2018, the Supreme Judicial Court also ordered the state to return most court fines and probation fees to people whose cases were dismissed; one estimate puts that price tag at $10 million. The new numbers appear in a report issued by a court-designated "Special Master." 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 . "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. Exhausted from the ongoing scandal in Boston, state officials were desperate for damage control. Penate is seeking a new trial, contending the conviction should be reversed because of prosecutorial misconduct and evidence tainted by Farak. It took another three years for the truth to emerge. Two Massachusetts drug lab technicians Sonja Farak and Annie Dookhan were caught tainting evidence in separate drug labs in different but equally shocking ways. Prosecutors have an obligation to give the defense exculpatory evidence including anything that could weaken evidence against defendants. Sonja Farak, who worked as a chemist at the Amherst drug lab since 2004, was arrested in January 2013 after one of her co-workers noticed samples were missing from evidence. (Featured Image Credit: Mass Live). Damning evidence reveals drug lab chemist Sonja Farak's addictions. Farak as a young. State prosecutors gave Farak the immunity they had declined to grant two years earlier, then asked when she started analyzing samples while high. Soon after, the state police took over the control, and the lab was moved to Springfield, where it remains under the supervision of the state police. After serving just a year of her 18 month sentence, Farak was released from prison in 2015. Reporting for this story was supported by the Fund for Investigative Journalism. Regarding the cases that she had handled, the Massachusetts courts threw out every case in the Amherst lab during her tenure. 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. In court, she added that there was "no smoking gun" in the evidence. 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. A federal judge has rejected claims from an embattled former state prosecutor that she is protected from liability in the fallout over a Massachusetts drug lab scandal. For people with disabilities needing assistance with the Public Files, contact Glenn Heath at 617-300-3268. "Going to use phentermine," she wrote on another, "but when I went to take it, I saw how little (v. little) there is left = ended up not using. With your support, GBH will continue to innovate, inspire and connect through reporting you value that meets todays moments. At the very least, we expected that we would get everything they collected in their case against Farak. Flannery, now in private practice, said the substance abuse worksheets are clearly relevant to defendants challenging Faraks analysis. In the aftermath, the court felt it necessary to make clear that "no prosecutorhas the authority to decline to disclose exculpatory information.". At the time of her arrest, she had resided in 37 Laurel Park in Northampton. motion with Hampden Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Kinder to see the evidence for himself. Even before her arrest, the Department of Public Health had launched an internal inquiry into how such misconduct had gone undetected for such a long time. Faraks wife had her own mental health problems, and according to Rolling Stone, Farak would have conflict with her wife every night at home. Tens of thousands of criminal drug cases were dismissed as a result of misconduct by Dookhan and Farak. As . Defense attorneys had. 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. 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. The attorney general's representative at these hearings was Assistant Attorney General Kris Foster, a recent hire. The judge ordered prosecutors and defense attorneys to coordinate on identifying undisclosed emails related to documents seized from the disgraced state crime lab chemist. Farak wasn't the first Massachusetts chemist to tamper with drug evidence. She started working shortly after for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health in July 2003 until July 2012, and from July 2012 until January 2013 for the Massachusetts State Police when the lab fell under their jurisdiction. Sonja Farak pleaded guilty to stealing samples of drugs from an Amherst drug lab. Farak was arrested the next day, and the attorney general's office assigned the case to Anne Kaczmarek. Not only did they not turn these documents over, but I wasnt aware that they existed, said Frank Flannery, who was the Hampden County assistant district attorney assigned to appeals following Faraks arrest. "It was almost like Dookhan wanted to get caught," one of her former co-workers told state police in 2012. Netflix released a new docu-series called "How to Fix a Drug Scandal." answered that the state considered the evidence irrelevant to any case other than Faraks.. Foster's first stepper ethical obligations and office protocolshould have been to look through the evidence to see what had already been handed over. Farak was a former lab chemist at a lab in Amherst, Massachusetts and was convicted of stealing and using drugs from the lab where she worked. 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. A Powerful EHR to Manage a Thriving Practice. We couldn't do it without you. The twin Massachusetts drug lab scandals are unprecedented in the sheer number of cases thrown out because of forensic misconduct. Judge Kinder ordered her to produce all potentially privileged documents for his review to determine whether they could be disclosed. In the only quasi-independent probe of the Farak scandal ever ordered, Attorney General Healey and a district attorney appointed two retired judges to investigate in summer 2015. Her notes record on-the-job drug use ranging from small nips of the lab's baseline standard stock of the stimulant phentermine to stealing crack not only from her own samples but from colleagues' as well. Foster, now general counsel at the Massachusetts Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission, and Kaczmarek, now a clerk magistrate in Suffolk Superior Court, declined to comment for this story. Because of all that, it's no surprise that Farak was sent to prison in Massachusetts. wrote she "tried to resist using @ work, but ended up failing." Rollins said it covers "a period of time in which either now disgraced chemist Annie Dookhan, or another convicted chemist Sonja Farak ," worked there. Sonja Farak was a chemist for a state crime lab in Massachusetts. Foster protested that portions of the evidentiary file in question might be privileged or not subject to disclosure. The responsibility of the mess that she created should also rest upon the shoulders of her workplace that allowed her the opportunity to indulge so freely in drugs in the first place. After high school, Sonja went on to major in biochemistry at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in western Massachusetts. She is not active on any social media platform and has kept her distance from the press. Thanks largely to the prosecutors' deception, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in October 2018 was forced to dismiss thousands of cases Farak may never have even touched, including every single conviction based on evidence processed at the Amherst lab from 2009 to the day of Farak's arrest in 2013. Penate's lawsuit, which seeks $5.7 million in damages, is believed to be one of the last remaining suits tied to the scandals; the statute of limitations to file such suits has expired. One was clearly dated November 16, 2011a year and two months before her arrest. "It would be difficult to overstate the significance of these documents," Ryan wrote to the attorney general's office. The Amherst Bulletin reported that her medical records indicated that she only became addicted to drugs once she started working at the lab, in 2004. 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.". memo to Judge Kinder the next week, Foster said she reviewed the file, and said every document in it had already been disclosed. As a teenager, she had attempted suicide. The charges against Penate were dismissed after Farak's conviction. 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. (Belchertown, MA, 01/22/13) Sonja Farak, 35, of Northampton, is arraigned in Eastern Hampshire District Court in Belchertown on charges that she stole cocaine and heroin while working as a. YouTube In June 2011, Dookhan secretly took 90 samples out of an evidence locker and then forged a co-worker's initials to check them back in, a clear chain-of-custody breach. Coakley's office finally launched a criminal investigation in July 2012, more than a year after the infraction was discovered by Dookhan's supervisors. In November 2013, Dookhan pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice, tampering with evidence, and perjury. Thanks to Farak's testimony and those diary worksheets, we now know that, soon after joining the Amherst lab in 2004, Farak started skimming from the methamphetamine "standard," an undiluted oil used as a reference against which suspected meth samples are compared. Introduction. Compromised drug samples often fit the definition. "No reasonablejury could conclude that this evidence is not favorable.". Each employee had a unique swipe card, but Farak simply used a physical key to get in after hours and on weekends. She said, It was about coping; it certainly wasnt about having fun; I dont think shes had fun in quite a while.. This scandal has thrown thousands of drug cases into question, on top of more than 24,000 cases tainted by a scandal involving ex-chemist Annie Dookhan at the state's Hinton Lab in Jamaica Plain. Such strong claims were too hasty at best, since investigators had not yet finished basic searches; three days later, police executed a warrant for a duffel bag they found stuffed behind Farak's desk. She was released in 2015, as reported by Mass Live. Would love your thoughts, please comment. Kaczmarek quoted the worksheets in a memo to her supervisor, Verner, and others, summarizing that they revealed Farak's "struggle with substance abuse." She first worked at the Hinton State Laboratory in Jamaica Plain for a year as a bacteriologist working on HIV tests before she transferred to the Amherst Lab for drug analysis. On top of that, it was also ensured that no analyst would ever work without supervision. Joseph . The Netflix docuseries ends by acknowledging that Farak received an 18-month sentence, and that defense attorney Luke Ryan was able . In worksheet notes dated Thursday, Dec. 22, Farak Dookhan was now spending less time at her lab bench and more time testifying in court about her results. Netflixs How to Fix a Drug Scandal Story: 5 Fast Facts. 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. But why were a small handful of prosecutors allowed total control over evidence about one of the worst criminal justice failures in recent memory? She played as the starting guard for Portsmouth High Schools freshman team. The Attorney Generals Office, Velis and Merrigan and the state police declined to answer questions about the handling of the Farak evidence. The premise revolves around documentary filmmaker Erin Lee Carr following the effects of crime drug lab chemists Sonja Farak and Annie Dookhan and their tampering with evidence and its aftereffects.. Dookhan was accused of forging reports and tampering with samples to . The governor didn't appoint the inspector general or anyone else to determine how long Farak was altering samples or running analyses while high. Verner's "marching orders," he later testified, were to prosecute Farak with "what was in front of us, the car, things that were readily apparent. Terms Of Use, (Annie Dookhan (left) and Sonja Farak, Associated Press). This not only led to people getting a reprieve from prison but also filing their own lawsuits against the injustice they had to suffer. Sonja Farak, a chemist with a longterm mental health struggle, is the catalyst of the story, but it doesn't end with her. TherapyNotes. She received the American Institute of Chemists Award in her final year as well as a Crimson and Gray Award from the school a year before, which recognized her dedication, commitment and unselfishness in the enrichment of student life at WPI. A Rolling Stone piece on Farak also indicated that she graduated with high distinction from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute. The Farak documents indicate she used drugs on the very day she certified samples as heroin in Penates case. In a rare move, the judicial office that brings disciplinary cases against lawyers in Massachusetts has accused a prosecutor of professional misconduct, including allegations that she failed to share critical information with defense lawyers and attempted to interfere with defense witnesses. If Farak found a substance was a true drug, the person it was confiscated from could be convicted of a substance-related crime. In January 2014, she pleaded guilty to evidence tampering and drug possession. 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. The lead prosecutor on Farak's case knew about the diaries, as did supervisors at the state attorney general's office. In Farak's car, police found a "works kit"crack cocaine, a spatula, and copper mesh, often used as a pipe filter. Lets find out. The fact that she ran analyses while high and regularly dipped into samples casts doubt on thousands of convictions. During her trial, her defense lawyer Elaine Pourinski said that Farak wasnt taking drugs to party, but instead to control her depression. Instead, Coakley's office served as gatekeeper to evidence that could have untangled the scandal and freed thousands of people from prison and jail years earlier, or at least wiped their improper convictions off the books. His email was one of more than 800 released with the Velis-Merrigan report. Approximately one year later, she pled guilty to tampering with evidence, unlawful possession, and stealing narcotics. Kaczmarek, along with former assistant attorneys general Kris Foster and John Verner, all face possible sanctions. Her access to evidence was not restricted, and she continued testifying in court. The chemist, Sonja Farak, worked at the state drug lab in Amherst, Massachusetts, for more than eight years. 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. shipped nearly 300 pages of previously undisclosed materials to local prosecutors around the state. Grand Jury Transcript - Sonja Farak - September 16, 2015 Contributed by Shawn Musgrave (Musgrave Investigations) p. 1. In the eight and a half years she worked at the Hinton State Laboratory in Boston, her supervisors apparently never noticed she certified samples as narcotics without actually testing them, a type of fraud called "dry-labbing." Emma Camp a certification of drug samples in Penates case on Dec. 22, 2011. "It would be difficult to overstate the significance of these documents, Ryan Shawn Musgrave What Did Sonja Farak Do, Exactly? Shortly into her role at Amherst, Farak decided to try liquid methamphetamine to ease her personal struggles. On another worksheet chronicling her struggle not to use, she described 12 of the next 13 samples assigned to her for testing as "urge-ful.". "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. This is merely a fishing expedition, Foster wrote in It had no surveillance cameras, laughable security on evidence safes, and "laissez faire" management, which the state inspector general determined was the "most glaring factor that led to the Dookhan crisis. Sonja Farak. But Ryan, who represented Penate, suspected it was more extensive. Without access to the diaries, the Springfield judge in 2013 found that Farak had starting stealing from samples in summer 2012. Thank you! Even as they filed numerous motions for information about how long Farak had been using drugs, the defense attorneys had no idea these worksheets existed. They say court records and newly released emails show prosecutors sat on evidence they were familiar with that pointed to Faraks drug use in 2011, when she worked on Penates case. According to the Daily Hampshire Gazette, Farak graduated with awards and distinctions. The hotline is open Monday through Friday, from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Between 2005 and 2013, Sonja Farak was performing laboratory tests at a state drug lab in Amherst while under the influence of narcotics. 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. The show also delves into the issues of the state in discovering and reporting on the extent of the cases that were affected by Faraks actions. 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. Because state prosecutors hid Farak's substance abuse diaries, it took far too long for the full timeline of her crimes to become public. The information showed that Farak sought therapy for drug addiction and that her misconduct had been ongoing for years. (Conveniently, they also found a Patriots schedule from 2011 in the car.). Although the year she wrote the notes wasnt listed on the worksheet, in the six years prior to her arrest, 2011 is the only year in which Dec. 22 fell on a Thursday. This is the story of Farak's drug-induced wrongdoings, and it's the. 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. 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. Yet state prosecutors withheld Farak's handwritten notes about her drug use, theft, and evidence tampering from defense attorneys and a judge for more than a year. Since the takeover, the budget for all forensic labs across the state has been increased, by around twenty-five per cent. The actions of Sonja Farak and Annie Dookhan caused a racket of such a scale that the state had to recompense for it with millions of dollars and had to make a historic move in the dismissal of wrongful convictions. The scandal led. Nassif considered it a lapse in judgment, but not a disqualifying one; Nassif's boss didn't think it necessary to alert the prosecutors whose cases relied on the samples, much less the defendants. GBH News brings you the stories, local voices, and big ideas that shape our world. Her reporting focuses on mental health, criminal justice and education. Farak received a sentence of 18 months in jail and 5 years of probation. The cocaine, found in an unsealed, completed drug-testing kit, tested negativemeaning Farak had seemingly replaced the formerly "positive" drugs with falsified substances. ordered a report on the history of her illicit behavior. Accessibility | Foster replied that because the investigation against Farak was ongoing, she couldnt let him see it. "I was totally controlled by my addiction," Farak later testified. "Whether law enforcement officials overlooked these papers or intentionally suppressed them is a question for another day.". At some point, the attorney general's office stopped chasing leads entirely. 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.
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