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Without even interviewing Foster, they determined there was "no evidence" of obstruction of justice by her, by Kaczmarek, or by any state prosecutor. As Solotaroff recounts in detail, Massachusetts attorney Luke Ryan represented two people who were accused of drug charges that Farak had analyzed . 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. She tried to kill herself in high school, according to Rolling Stone. The Chemists and the Cover-Up - Reason.com State chemist may have affected more drug cases than previously known Applying Routine Activity Theory: A Case Study of the Sonya Farak Drug Privacy Policy | According to her teammates, She was the best center in the league last year, and they [felt] stronger with her in there than with some guys.. Watch How to Fix a Drug Scandal | Netflix Official Site "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. In Sonja Farak drug lab scandal, Mass - The Washington Post He was floored when he found the worksheets. While Dookhan had tampered with evidence and indulged in dry-labbing, Farak stole from her workplace. Local prosecutors also remained in the dark. Earlier that day, a chemist at the Amherst drug lab had tracked two samples that were missing from the evidence locker to Sonja Farak's bench. Like Hinton, the Amherst lab had no cameras. Sonja Farak stole, ingested or manufactured drugs almost every day for eight years while working as a chemist at a state lab in Amherst, Massachusetts. His is one of what lawyers say could be thousands of convictions questioned in the wake of the Farak scandal. But when the relevant police reports were released to defense attorneys, there was no mention of the diary entries' existence, much less that they went back so far. ", But another co-worker was suspicious, particularly since he "never saw Dookhan in front of a microscope.". motion on behalf of another client to see the evidence. Verner, who testified that he didn't "micromanage" Kaczmarek, escaped criticism. denied Penates motion to dismiss the case, saying there was no evidence that Faraks misconduct extended to his case. The justices ordered Healey's department to cover all costs of notifying all defendants whose cases were dismissed. The surveillance of the chemists as well as the standards and the confiscated drugs has also been increased considerably. The lawsuit names Kaczmarek, Farak and three members of the state police. Months after Farak pleaded guilty in January 2014, Ryan filed a The state and attorneys for some of the defendants agreed to a $14 million settlement to reimburse 31,000 defendants for post conviction-related costs, such as probation and parole fees, drug analysis and GPS monitoring. Former State Chemist High At Work For Nearly 8 Years, Documents Say The drug lab technician was sent to prison for 18 months, but was released in 2015. Even the master's degree on her rsum was fabricated. High Mass. Lab Chemist Causes Over 24,000 Drug Charges To Be Dismissed ", Prosecutors nationwide pretty uniformly backed this argument, which the Supreme Court rejected in a 54 opinion. After serving just a year of her 18 month sentence, Farak was released from prison in 2015. A status hearing on Penate's suit, which was filed in 2017, is scheduled for July. Kaczmarek argued for qualified immunity after she was sued by Rolando Penate, who spent five years in prison on drug charges in which the evidence in his case was tested by Farak. 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. 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. On a Friday afternoon in January 2013, a call came in to Coakley's office: "We have another Annie Dookhan out west.". Or she just lied about her results altogether: In one of the more ludicrous cases, she testified under oath that a chunk of cashew was crack cocaine. After her arrest, she received support from her parents, who showed up to her court appearances, the Daily Hampshire Gazette reported. It was. Investigators either missed or declined opportunities to dig very deep. ", Everyone Practices Cancel Culture | Opinion, Deplatforming Free Speech is Dangerous | Opinion. Between the two women, 47,000 drug convictions and guilty pleas have been dismissed in the last two years, many for misdemeanor possession. Magistrate Judge Robertson denied a request in Penate's lawsuit that Kaczmarek be prohibited from contesting the special hearing officer's findings. Netflix released a new docu-series called "How to Fix a Drug Scandal." The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled in 2015by which time the current state attorney general, Maura Healey, had been electedthat it was "imperative" for the government to "thoroughly investigate the timing and scope of Farak's misconduct." another filing. Farak had started taking drugs on the job within months of joining the Amherst lab in 2004. What Happened To Sonja From Netflix Drug Scandal Series - Refinery29 Penate is seeking a new trial, contending the conviction should be reversed because of prosecutorial misconduct and evidence tainted by Farak. "If she were suffering from back injurymaybe she took some oxys?" She couldn't be sure which cases these were, Dookhan told investigators. How to Fix a Drug Scandal is an American true crime documentary miniseries that was released on Netflix on April 1, 2020. She was released in 2015, as reported by Mass Live. The former judges and the state police officers who helped them conducted a thorough review, said Emalie Gainey, spokeswoman for Attorney General Maura Healey. A local prosecutor also asked Ballou to look into a case Farak had tested as far back as 2005. Farak's reports were central to thousands of cases, and the fact that she ran analyses while high and regularly dipped into "urge-ful" samples casts doubt on thousands of convictions. In worksheet notes dated Thursday, Dec. 22, Farak wrote she "tried to resist using @ work, but ended up failing." Although the year she wrote the notes wasn't listed . How to write better therapy progress notes: 10 examples She was also under the influence when she took the stand during her trial. How to Fix a Drug Scandal: With Shannon O'Neill, Karl Kenzler, Paul Solotaroff, Scott Allen. They were all rendered unacceptable. Dookhan was sentenced to prison in 2013. In 2012, she began taking from co-workers' samples, forging intake forms and editing the lab database to cover her tracks. She started doing drugs almost as soon as she took the job at Amherst, but it was after years of negligence on her superiors part that her actions finally came to light. On paper, these numbers made Dookhan the most productive chemist at Hinton; the next most productive averaged around 300 samples per month. Prosecutors have an obligation to give the defense exculpatory evidence including anything that could weaken evidence against defendants. 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. Relying on an investigation conducted by state police, the judges A hearing on their motions is scheduled next month. 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. Fue arrestada el 19 de enero de 2013. Accessibility | Farak was arrested the next day, and the attorney general's office assigned the case to Anne Kaczmarek. A second unsealed report into allegations of wrongdoing by police and prosecutors who handled the Farak evidence, overseen by retired state judges Peter Velis and Thomas Merrigan, drew less attention. Gainey added that Healey is pleased with their conclusion that prosecutors and the state police acted appropriately. We were unable to subscribe you to WBUR Today. Where Is Sonja Farak From Netflix's 'Drug Scandal' Doc Now? Looking back, it seems that Massachusetts law enforcement officials, reeling from the Dookhan case, simply felt they couldn't weather another full-fledged forensics scandal. "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. Sonja Farak: Defendant Rafael Rodriguez died of drug overdose - MEAWW Sonja Farak, a chemist with a longterm mental health struggle, is the catalyst of the story, but it doesn't end with her. ", The chemist, Sonja Farak, worked at the state drug lab in Amherst, Massachusetts, for more than eight years. Over time, Farak's drug use turned to cocaine, LSD and, eventually, crack. (Featured Image Credit: Mass Live). There is nothing to indicate that the allegations against Farak date back to the time she tested the drugs in Penates case. 2023 Cinemaholic Inc. All rights reserved. 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 worked as a chemist for the state of Massachusetts, specializing in identifying illegal substances. 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. Who is Sonja Farak, the former state drug lab chemist featured in the show? 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. When Farak was arrested,former Attorney General Martha Coakley told the public investigators believed Farak tampered with drugs at the lab for only a few months. Investigators gave that information to Kaczmarek and the state AG's office,according tohearings before thestate board that disciplines attorneys. 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. Foster said that Kaczmarek told her all relevant evidence had been turned over and that her supervisor told her to write the letter, though both denied these claims. The fact that she ran analyses while high and regularly dipped into samples casts doubt on thousands of convictions. Still, the state was acquiring evidence. Patrick said "the most important take-home" was that "no individual's due process rights were compromised.". "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.". Only a few months after Dookhan's conviction, it was discovered that another Massachusetts crime lab worker, Sonja Farak, who was addicted to drugs, not only stole her supply from the. This not only led to people getting a reprieve from prison but also filing their own lawsuits against the injustice they had to suffer. Massachusetts Chemist Prosecution Leads to Falling Consumer Confidence As federal food benefits decline, Mass. Netflix's How to Fix a Drug Scandal: What Happened To Sonja Farak It's Boston local news in one concise, fun and informative email. Because she did so, Plaintiff served more than five years in a state prison.". Patrick appointed the state inspector general to look into it. Subscribe to Reason Roundup, a wrap up of the last 24 hours of news, delivered fresh each morning. 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. The governor didn't appoint the inspector general or anyone else to determine how long Farak was altering samples or running analyses while high. In an August 2013 email, Ryan asked Assistant Attorney General Kris Foster to review evidence taken from Farak. She said, It was about coping; it certainly wasnt about having fun; I dont think shes had fun in quite a while.. The chemist, Sonja Farak, worked at the state drug lab in Amherst, Massachusetts, for more than eight years. Kaczmarek quoted the worksheets in a memo to her supervisor, Verner, and others, summarizing that they revealed Farak's "struggle with substance abuse." Farak received a sentence of 18 months in jail and 5 years of probation. The information showed that Farak sought therapy for drug addiction and that her misconduct had been ongoing for years. As Kaczmarek herself later observed, Farak essentially had "a drugstore at her disposal" from her first day at the Amherst lab. "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. Despite being a star child of the family, Sonja suffered from the mental illnesses that haunted her even in adulthood. In Farak's car, police found a "works kit"crack cocaine, a spatula, and copper mesh, often used as a pipe filter. And yet, despite explicit requests for this kind of evidence, 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. "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.