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"I was totally controlled by my addiction," Farak later testified. Perhaps, as criminal justice scandals inevitably emerge, we need to get more independent eyes on the evidence from the start. Farak was released from prison in 2015 and has kept a low profile since. Shortly into her role at Amherst, Farak decided to try liquid methamphetamine to ease her personal struggles. Investigators either missed or declined opportunities to dig very deep. And both pose the obvious question about how chemists could behave so badly for years without detection. "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. Talking Politics: Should a new government agency protect the coastline from climate change? The Dookhan prosecution was barely underway, a grand jury having returned indictments a few weeks earlier. "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. 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 . They wrote that Lee, disabled by a stew of mental ailments, [spent] her hours surfing the Web in a haze.. After high school, Sonja went on to major in biochemistry at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in western Massachusetts. Accessibility | When the Farak scandal erupted, that misconduct came into view. The new numbers appear in a report issued by a court-designated "Special Master." As federal food benefits decline, Mass. Magistrate Judge Robertson denied a request in Penate's lawsuit that Kaczmarek be prohibited from contesting the special hearing officer's findings. 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. One thing that How to Fix a Drug Scandal makes clear is that it wasnt all Sonja Faraks fault. email highlighted in the Velis-Merrigan report. Tens of thousands of criminal drug cases were dismissed as a result of misconduct by Dookhan and Farak. State prosecutors gave Farak the immunity they had declined to grant two years earlier, then asked when she started analyzing samples while high. While Dookhan had tampered with evidence and indulged in dry-labbing, Farak stole from her workplace. 2. 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.". But she insisted the drugs didn't compromise her worka belief that one judge would aptly declare "belies logic.". 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. Process Notes/Psychotherapy Notes Process notes are sometimes also referred to as psychotherapy notesthey're the notes you take during or after a session. Farak admitted to being on a list of drugs while working between 2004 and her 2013 arrest. Episode 1. Farak as a young. 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. According to a Rolling Stone piece on Farak, she struggled with depression from an early age, one that hasnt responded to medication. They wrote that Farak attempted suicide in high school and was also hospitalized while in college. Kaczmarek got a note from Sgt. Kaczmarek had obtained the evidence at issue while she was prosecuting Farak on state charges of tampering with evidence and drug possession. "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." That settlement awaits approval by a judge. 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. The lead prosecutor on Farak's case knew about the diaries, as did supervisors at the state attorney general's office. 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. At least 11,000 cases have already been dismissed due to fallout from the scandal, with thousands more likely to come. 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. From 2004 to 2013, Farak took advantage of . The medical records stated that she did not have an existing drug problem that was amplified by her access to more substances. 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 . But the Farak scandal is in many ways worse, since the chemist's crimes were compounded by drug abuse on the job and prosecutorial misconduct that the state's top court called "the deceptive withholding of exculpatory evidence by members of the Attorney General's office.". Who is Sonja Farak, the former state drug lab chemist featured in the show? answered that the state considered the evidence irrelevant to any case other than Faraks.. You can try, Suspensions and a reprimand proposed for prosecutors admonished in drug lab scandal. ", Prosecutors maintained that Faraks rogue behavior spanned just a few months. Finding that there did not appear to be enough slides in Dookhan's discard pile to match her numbers, the colleague brought his concerns to an outside attorney, who advised he should be careful making "accusations about a young woman's career," he later told state police. There were also newspaper articles about other officials caught stealing drugs, including one with a scribbled note, "Thank god I'm not a law enforcement officer." 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. Kaczmarek, along with former assistant attorneys general Kris Foster and John Verner, all face possible sanctions. Approximately one year later, she pled guilty to tampering with evidence, unlawful possession, and stealing narcotics. Joseph Ballou, lead investigator for the state police, called them the most important documents from the car. The story of the intertwining Farak and Penate evidence began in January 2013, when state police arrested Farak and searched her car. 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. . After serving for 13 months, she was released on parole in 2015. Even when she failed a post-arrest drug testprompting the lead investigator to quip to Kaczmarek, "I hope she doesn't have a stash in her house! Thus, only defendants whose evidence she tested in the six-month window before her arrest could challenge their cases. Despite such unequivocal findings of misconduct, the court removed language about Kaczmarek and Foster from notification letters to those whose cases have been dismissed, which will be sent out in early 2019. Foster 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. In an August 2013 email, Ryan asked Assistant Attorney General Kris Foster to review evidence taken from Farak. "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. 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. They were found with their packaging sliced open and their contents apparently altered. This very well could have been the end of the investigative trail but for a few stubborn defense lawyers, who appealed the ruling. 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. But unlike with Dookhan, no one launched a bigger investigation of Farak. GBH News Center for Investigative Reporting. The court also dismissed all meth cases processed at the lab since Farak started in 2004. 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. Thank you! "The gravity of the present case cannot be overstated," Kaczmarek wrote in her memo recommending a prison sentence of five to seven years. Patrick said "the most important take-home" was that "no individual's due process rights were compromised.". His is one of what lawyers say could be thousands of convictions questioned in the wake of the Farak scandal. Local prosecutors also remained in the dark. Despite her status as a free woman (who has seemingly disappeared from the public eye), Farak's wrongdoings continue to make waves in the Massachusetts courts. Inwardly though, Sonja Farak was striving. State officials rushed to condemn her loudly and publicly. Months after Farak pleaded guilty in January 2014, Ryan filed a Biden Embraces the Fearmongering, Vows To Squash D.C.'s Mild Criminal Justice Reforms, The Flap Over Biden's Comment About 2 Fentanyl Deaths Obscures Prohibition's Role in Causing Them, Conservatives Turn Further Against WarExcept Maybe With Mexico. Coakley's office finally launched a criminal investigation in July 2012, more than a year after the infraction was discovered by Dookhan's supervisors. She is not active on any social media platform and has kept her distance from the press. Exhausted from the ongoing scandal in Boston, state officials were desperate for damage control. The disgraced chemist was sentenced to less than two years behind bars in 2014, following her guilty pleas for stealing cocaine from the lab. 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. Farak was arrested the next day, and the attorney general's office assigned the case to Anne Kaczmarek. Ryan finally viewed the file in the attorney generals offices in October 2014. Farak signed a certification of drug samples in Penate's case on Dec. 22, 2011. The Farak scandal came as the state grappled with another drug lab crisis. In the aftermath of Farak's arrest, it's been argued that because she was under the influence, all of the cases she tested could be considered to have been wrongfully convicted. mentioned a New England Patriots game on Saturday, Dec. 24 which corresponded with a game date in 2011. 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. "Annie Dookhan's alleged actions corrupted the integrity of the criminal justice system, and there are many victims as a result of this," Coakley said at a press conference. Lost in the high drama of determining which individual prosecutors hid evidence was a more basic question: In scandals like these, why are decisions about evidence left to prosecutors at all? She had never quashed a subpoena before, but supervisors told her to fend off motions about Farak. 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." But a crucial issue was not before the court. Maybe it's not a matter of checklists or reminders that prosecutors have to keep their eyes open for improprieties. 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. 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. YouTube Democratic Gov. Netflixs How to Fix a Drug Scandal tells the story of two women whose actions brought to light the negligence of the system that is supposed to deliver justice to everyone. Privacy Policy | She had been accused of intentional infliction of emotional distress in addition to the conspiracy to violate [Penates] civil rights.. Read More: Where is Sonja Farak Sister Now? In 2019, she was seen leaving the Springfield Federal Court but declined to comment on the status of the case. 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. In January of 2013, Sonja Farak, a chemist at a state crime lab in Massachusetts, was arrested for tampering with evidence related to criminal drug cases (Small, 2020).A year later, Farak pleaded guilty to tampering with drug evidence, theft of a controlled substance, and drug possession .She received a sentence of 18 months with 5 years of probation and was released in 2015. The last contact information provided by her, in response to Penates allegations, placed her residence in Hatfield, Massachusetts. Farak had started taking drugs on the job within months of joining the lab. 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. "No reasonable individual could have failed to appreciate the unlawfulness of [Kaczmarek's] actions in these circumstances," Robertson wrote in her ruling. Soon after Dookhan's arrest, Coakley's office asked the governor to order a broader independent probe of the Hinton lab. "These drugswere tested fairly," Coakley claimed the day after Farak's arrest. The place was closed as soon as Faraks crimes came to light. Cleverly omitting pronouns, she wrote that "after reviewing" the file, "every documenthas been disclosed." 3.4.2023 8:00 AM, Reason Staff One was clearly dated November 16, 2011a year and two months before her arrest. At this point, Farakunlike Dookhandidn't admit anything. Many more are likely to follow, with the total expected to exceed 50,000. Instead, she submitted an intentionally vague letter to the judge claiming defense attorneys already had everything. Another worksheet had the month and weekdays for December 2011, which police easily could have determined by cross-referencing holidays or looking up a New England Patriots game mentioned in one entry. She was released in 2015, as reported by Mass Live. As How to Fix a Drug Scandal explores, Farak had long struggled with her mental . | This article originally appeared in print under the headline "The Chemists and the Cover-Up". She even made her own crack in the lab. Over the next four years, Farak consumed nearly all of it. Farak started at Amherst lab in Aug 2004 p. 32. Kaczmarek quoted the worksheets in a memo to her supervisor, Verner, and others, summarizing that they revealed Farak's "struggle with substance abuse." During the next four years, she would periodically sober up and then relapse. "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. What Did Sonja Farak Do, Exactly? Faraks notes also And so, when she pleaded guilty in January 2014, Farak got what one attorney called "de facto immunity." Lets find out. This not only led to people getting a reprieve from prison but also filing their own lawsuits against the injustice they had to suffer. Even though Farak found a job after graduation and was settled down with her partner, she continued to struggle with depression and felt like a stranger in her body. On the surface, their crimes dont seem as injurious and they dont seem to enjoy inflicting pain on others. The criminal prosecution wasn't the only investigation of the Dookhan scandal. She consumed meth, crack cocaine, amphetamines, and LSD at the bench where she tested samples, in a lab bathroom, and even at courthouses where she was testifying. Farak admitted in testimony that she began using drugs almost as soon as she started working at the Massachusetts State Crime Lab in Amherst. "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.". Most important, they found seven worksheets from Farak's substance abuse therapy. But she worried they might be privileged as health information. In 2009, Farak branched out to the lab's amphetamine, phentermine, and cocaine standards. Instead, Kaczmarek proceeded as if the substance abuse was a recent development. | Her job consisted of testing drugs that have. This immediately provoked questions about the thousands of cases in which her findings had contributed to the imprisonment of an individual. The Attorney Generals Office, Velis and Merrigan and the state police declined to answer questions about the handling of the Farak evidence. "That was one of the lines I had thought I would never cross: I wouldn't tamper with evidence, I wouldn't smoke crack, and then I wouldn't touch other people's work," Farak said. Penate argued the court should follow those findings. Who is Sonja Farak? In a March 2013 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 . motion with Hampden Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Kinder to see the evidence for himself. 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. Farak received a sentence of 18 months in jail and 5 years of probation. In Farak's car, police found a "works kit"crack cocaine, a spatula, and copper mesh, often used as a pipe filter.