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The disgraced chemist was sentenced to less than two years behind bars in 2014, following her guilty pleas for stealing cocaine from the lab. Shown results suggesting otherwise, she copped to contaminating samples "a few times" during the previous "two to three years.". Farak as a young. "It would be difficult to overstate the significance of these documents, Ryan Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility at GBH, Transparency in Coverage Cost-Sharing Disclosures. 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. (Netflix) A former state chemist, Sonja Farak, made headlines in 2013 when she was arrested for stealing and using drugs from a laboratory. They were found with their packaging sliced open and their contents apparently altered. noted the mental health worksheets found in Faraks car, which had not been released. A drug chemist . As How to Fix a Drug Scandal explores, Farak had long struggled with her mental . 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. Sonja Farak, a chemist with a longterm mental health struggle, is the catalyst of the story, but it doesn't end with her. Joseph Ballou, lead investigator for the state police, called them the most important documents from the car. Dookhan was now spending less time at her lab bench and more time testifying in court about her results. ", Everyone Practices Cancel Culture | Opinion, Deplatforming Free Speech is Dangerous | Opinion. 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. But unlike with Dookhan, there were no independent investigations of Farak or the Amherst lab. Because the attorney general had "portrayed Farak as a dedicated public servant who was apprehended immediately after crossing the line, there was also no reasonto waste resources engaging in any additional introspection.". She had never quashed a subpoena before, but supervisors told her to fend off motions about Farak. The court also dismissed all meth cases processed at the lab since Farak started in 2004. NORTHAMPTON Sonja J. Farak told a nurse at the Western Massachusetts Regional Women's Correctional Center in Chicopee in December 2013 that she used methamphetamines and other stimulants "whenever she could get her hands on them." And since her job as a chemist was to test drug samples at a state drug lab in Amherst, that opportunity came daily. Faraks notes also "he didn't request a warrant. It was. 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." 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. Former chemist Annie Dookhan was convicted in 2013 on charges of improperly testing drug evidence at a drug lab in Boston. A. One was clearly dated November 16, 2011a year and two months before her arrest. From 2004 to 2013, Farak took advantage of . Her access to evidence was not restricted, and she continued testifying in court. When a Therapy Session starts, the software automatically creates a To-Do list item reminding users to create the relevant documentation. 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. 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. 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. She couldn't be sure which cases these were, Dookhan told investigators. They never searched Farak's computer or her home. Farak struggled with mental health throughout her life, the documentary series explains. At the time of Penates trial, the state Attorney Generals Office contended Faraks misdeeds dated back only as far as 2012. 2023 Cinemaholic Inc. All rights reserved. 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. To better estimate how many convictions will have to be reviewed because of Farak, the Supreme Judicial Court Here are those forms with the admissions of drug use I was talking about," a state police sergeant wrote to Assistant Attorney General Anne Kaczmarek, who led Faraks prosecution, in a After Faraks arrest in 2013, police found pages of mental health worksheets in her car indicating she'd struggled with drug addiction since at least 2011. It didnt matter whether or not she was the one who did the testing or some other chemist. Farak was arrested the next day, and the attorney general's office assigned the case to Anne Kaczmarek. Deval Patrick's office didn't learn about the protocol breach until December 2011. 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. One thing that How to Fix a Drug Scandal makes clear is that it wasnt all Sonja Faraks fault. 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. Emma Camp Sonja Farak pleaded guilty to stealing samples of drugs from an Amherst drug lab. In November 2013, Dookhan pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice, tampering with evidence, and perjury. The last contact information provided by her, in response to Penates allegations, placed her residence in Hatfield, Massachusetts. 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. This immediately provoked questions about the thousands of cases in which her findings had contributed to the imprisonment of an individual. She was trying to suppress mental health issues, depression in specific, and she attempted to kill herself in high school, according to Rolling Stone. . The report In Farak's car, police found a "works kit"crack cocaine, a spatula, and copper mesh, often used as a pipe filter. 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. That motion was denied, and the notice letters will explain Farak's tampering without any mention of prosecutorial misconduct. wrote she "tried to resist using @ work, but ended up failing." Follow us so you don't miss a thing! So, in a way, it is not from her that the queue of the blame should begin; it should be from the lab and the authorities themselves. concluded there was no evidence of prosecutorial misconduct or obstruction of justice in matters related to the Farak case. Dookhan's output remained implausibly high even after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts (2009) that defendants were entitled to cross-examine forensic chemists about their analysis. ", The chemist, Sonja Farak, worked at the state drug lab in Amherst, Massachusetts, for more than eight years. Talking Politics: Should a new government agency protect the coastline from climate change? From the April 2023 issue, Billy Binion A final decision is still pending and must be approved by the state Supreme Judicial Court. Most of the heat for thisincluding formal bar complaintshas fallen on Kaczmarek and another former prosecutor, Kris Foster, who was tasked with responding to subpoenas regarding the Farak evidence. She was ar-rested for tampering with evidence while abusing narcotics at work. His email was one of more than 800 released with the Velis-Merrigan report. Kaczmarek, along with former assistant attorneys general Kris Foster and John Verner, all face possible sanctions. The chemist, Sonja Farak, worked at the state drug lab in Amherst, Massachusetts, for more than eight years. He was floored when he found the worksheets. The new numbers appear in a report issued by a court-designated "Special Master." 1. When the Farak scandal erupted, that misconduct came into view. Damning evidence reveals drug lab chemist Sonja Farak's addictions. (Featured Image Credit: Mass Live). The information showed that Farak sought therapy for drug addiction and that her misconduct had been ongoing for years. Coakley's office finally launched a criminal investigation in July 2012, more than a year after the infraction was discovered by Dookhan's supervisors. 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. Defense attorneys had. The justices ordered Healey's department to cover all costs of notifying all defendants whose cases were dismissed. Judge Kinder denied Ryans motion. 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. Kaczmarek got a note from Sgt. Privacy Policy | Join us. Over time, Farak's drug use turned to cocaine, LSD and, eventually, crack. It contained substances often used to make counterfeit cocaine, including soap, baking soda, candle wax, and modeling clay, plus lab dishes, wax paper, and fragments of a crack pipe. Process Notes/Psychotherapy Notes Process notes are sometimes also referred to as psychotherapy notesthey're the notes you take during or after a session. The attorney general's representative at these hearings was Assistant Attorney General Kris Foster, a recent hire. 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. As . Meier put the number at 40,323 defendants, though some have called that an overestimate. Poetically, that landmark case originated from the Hinton lab, although Dookhan didn't conduct the analysis in question. Given the account that Farak was a law-abiding citizen, it is questioned as to how an 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. 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. Several defense attorneys who called for the Velis-Merrigan investigation say the former judges and their state police investigators got it wrong. Disgraced drug lab chemist Sonja Farak emerges as her own attorney as defendant in $5.7 million federal lawsuit. She is not active on any social media platform and has kept her distance from the press. Sonja Farak, a state forensic chemist in western Massachusetts, was minutes away from testifying in a drug case in early 2013 when attorneys learned she was about to be arrested on charges of. Yet Dookhan's brazen crimes went undetected for ages. After serving for 13 months, she was released on parole in 2015. 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. | But whether anyone investigated her conduct during a brief stint working at the state's Boston drug lab is at . Sgt. Episode 1. Sonja Farak was a chemist for a state crime lab in Massachusetts. 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 . Still, the state was acquiring evidence. The fact that she ran analyses while high and regularly dipped into samples casts doubt on thousands of convictions. Kaczmarek is one of three former prosecutors whose role in the prosecution of Farak later became the focus of several lawsuits and disciplinary hearings. This very well could have been the end of the investigative trail but for a few stubborn defense lawyers, who appealed the ruling. Kaczmarek quoted the worksheets in a memo to her supervisor, Verner, and others, summarizing that they revealed Farak's "struggle with substance abuse." He didn't buy her quibbling that there's a difference between an explicit lie and obfuscation by grammar. As he leafed through three boxes of evidence, he found the substance abuse worksheets and diaries. "Because on almost a daily basis Farak abused narcoticsthere is no assurance that she was able to perform chemical analysis correctly," the judge found. Her reporting focuses on mental health, criminal justice and education. She's no longer in prison, as Farak has served her sentence. Kaczmarek had obtained the evidence at issue while she was prosecuting Farak on state charges of tampering with evidence and drug possession. Instead, Kaczmarek proceeded as if the substance abuse was a recent development. That settlement awaits approval by a judge. In worksheet notes dated Thursday, Dec. 22, Farak And yet, due to their actions, they did injure people and they did inflict a lot of pain, not just on a couple of people, but on thousands. The case of Rolando Penate has become a leading example for lawyers calling for further investigation into alleged misconduct by prosecutors who handled documents seized from Sonja Farak, the Amherst crime-lab chemist convicted of stealing and tampering with drug samples. Get all the latest from Sanditon on GBH Passport, How one Brookline studio helps artists with disabilities thrive. 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. shipped nearly 300 pages of previously undisclosed materials to local prosecutors around the state. When defense lawyers asked to see evidence for themselves, state prosecutors smeared them as pursuing a "fishing expedition.". "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. After serving just a year of her 18 month sentence, Farak was released from prison in 2015. Local prosecutors also remained in the dark. In an August 2013 email, Ryan asked Assistant Attorney General Kris Foster to review evidence taken from Farak. At least 11,000 cases have already been dismissed due to fallout from the scandal, with thousands more likely to come. Farak was released from prison in 2015 and has kept a low profile since. Democratic Gov. You have been subscribed to WBUR Today. She was arrested in 2013 when the supervisor at the Amherst lab was made aware that two samples were missing. In the series, it's explained that Farak loved the energy the meth gave her. 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. Among other items, Kaczmarek TherapyNotes. "I suspect that if another entity was in the mix"perhaps the inspector general or an independent investigator"the Attorney General's Office would have treated the Farak case much more seriously and would have been much more reluctant to hide the ball," Ryan writes in an email. 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." She also starting dipping into police-submitted samples, a "whole other level of morality," as Farak called it during a fall 2015 special grand jury session. Farak started at Amherst lab in Aug 2004 p. 32. Foster consulted Kaczmarek about the files contents, according to an The court decided to uphold a ruling dismissing charges against the defendant, a juvenile at the time of the alleged offense identified only as Washington W. The justices didnt name his prosecutor, David Omiunu, who was identified by The Eye from other court records. Sonja Farak is in the grip of a rubbed-raw depression that hasn't responded to medication. "It would be difficult to overstate the significance of these documents," Ryan wrote to the attorney general's office. Because of all that, it's no surprise that Farak was sent to prison in Massachusetts. Read More: Where is Sonja Farak Sister Now? Gainey added that Healey is pleased with their conclusion that prosecutors and the state police acted appropriately. And when the tests she did run came back negative, Dookhan added controlled substances to the vials. If there's ever any uncertainty over "whether exculpatory information should be disclosed," the Supreme Judicial Court later wrote, "the prosecutor must file a motion for a protective order and must present the information for a judge to review.". Kaczmarek was now juggling two scandals on opposite sides of the state. Sonja Farak worked as a chemist for the state of Massachusetts, specializing in identifying illegal substances. 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. You can check your records electronically by following this link: https://icori.chs.state.ma.us. The next month, Ryan asked again. 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. Shawn Musgrave Dookhan had seeded public mistrust in the criminal justice system, which "now becomes an issue in every criminal trial for every defendant.". Foster replied that because the investigation against Farak was ongoing, she couldnt let him see it. Below is an outline of her charges. The special hearing officer found Kaczmarek "displayed no remorse" and was "not candid" during the disciplinary proceedings. This article originally appeared in print under the headline "The Chemists and the Cover-Up". "It was almost like Dookhan wanted to get caught," one of her former co-workers told state police in 2012. "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. Having barely investigated her, prosecutors indicted Farak only for the samples in her possession the day she was caught. She stopped the interview when asked about crack pipes found at her bench, and state police towed her car back to barracks while they waited on a warrant. But unlike with Dookhan, no one launched a bigger investigation of Farak. After graduating from Portsmouth High School, Farak attended the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where she got a bachelor of science degree in biochemistry in 2000. As Kaczmarek herself later observed, Farak essentially had "a drugstore at her disposal" from her first day at the Amherst lab. The lead prosecutor on Farak's case knew about the diaries, as did supervisors at the state attorney general's office. Farak signed a certification of drug samples in Penate's case on Dec. 22, 2011. 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." a certification of drug samples in Penates case on Dec. 22, 2011. 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. If they'd kept digging, defendants might still have learned the crucial facts. Regarding the cases that she had handled, the Massachusetts courts threw out every case in the Amherst lab during her tenure. It was an astoundingly light touch for the second state chemist arrested in six months. 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. Faraks wife had her own mental health problems, and according to Rolling Stone, Farak would have conflict with her wife every night at home. As Solotaroff recounts in detail, Massachusetts attorney Luke Ryan represented two people who were accused of drug charges that Farak had analyzed . The number is 888-999-2881. 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. It's been like this forever, or at least since girlhood. Where is Sonja now? 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. 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. "All Defendant had to do to honor the Plaintiffs Brady rights was to turn over copies of documents that were obviously exculpatory as to the Farak defendants or accede to one of the repeated requests from counsel, including Plaintiffs counsel, that they be permitted to inspect the evidence seized from Faraks car," Robertson wrote in her ruling. 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." motion on behalf of another client to see the evidence. Farak worked for the Amherst Drug Lab in Massachusetts for 9 years when she was convicted of stealing and using them. Lets find out. 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. Each employee had a unique swipe card, but Farak simply used a physical key to get in after hours and on weekends. 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. 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. 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. Its no big deal, 14-year-old Farak said to the Panama City News Herald. Farak is amongst one of the 18 defendants battling the lawsuit filed by Rolando Penate. Farak also had an apparent obsession for her therapists husband, as she was reported to have a folder that shed put together about him, documenting her obsession. 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 . On top of that, it was also ensured that no analyst would ever work without supervision. | Magistrate Judge Robertson denied a request in Penate's lawsuit that Kaczmarek be prohibited from contesting the special hearing officer's findings. Fortunately, the courts largely ignored this shallow investigation. Together, we can create a more connected and informed world. 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. Her wrongdoings were exposed when unsealed cocaine and a crack pipe were found under her desk. The civil lawsuit was one of the last tied to prosecutors' disputed handling of the case against disgraced ex-chemist Sonja Farak, who was convicted in 2014 of ingesting drug samples she was.