Investigators gave that information to Kaczmarek and the state AG's office,according tohearings before thestate board that disciplines attorneys. Sgt. She recovered, made it through college and got a job as a chemist at the Amherst Crime Lab, where she tested confiscated drugs. 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! This story is an effort to reconstruct what was known about Farak and Dookhan's crimes, and when, based on court filings, diaries, and interviews with the major players. 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.". But whether anyone investigated her conduct during a brief stint working at the state's Boston drug lab is at . ", Officials rushed to downplay the situation in Amherst. "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. Maybe fatigue made them sloppy, or perhaps they actively chose to look the other way as evidence piled up about the enormity of Farak's crimes. The information showed that Farak sought therapy for drug addiction and that her misconduct had been ongoing for years. Maybe it's not a matter of checklists or reminders that prosecutors have to keep their eyes open for improprieties. The drug lab technician was sent to prison for 18 months, but was released in 2015. Farak was arrested the next day, and the attorney general's office assigned the case to Anne Kaczmarek. The judge ordered prosecutors and defense attorneys to coordinate on identifying undisclosed emails related to documents seized from the disgraced state crime lab chemist. Coakley did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story. In 2009, Farak branched out to the lab's amphetamine, phentermine, and cocaine standards. But unlike with Dookhan, there were no independent investigations of Farak or the Amherst lab. According to the notes, Farak thought it gave her energy, helped her to get things done and not procrastinate, feel more positive., Her partner Nikki Lee testified before a grand jury that she herself had tried cocaine, that she had observed Farak using cocaine in 2000, and that she had marijuana in her house when police officers arrived to search the premises as part of their investigation of Farak., In Faraks testimony during a grand jury investigation, she said that she became a recreational drug user during graduate school and used cocaine, marihuana, and ecstasy. She also said she used heroin one time and was nervous and sick and hated every minute of it [and had] no desire to use [it] again., Farak met and settled down with Nikki Lee in her 20s. 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. The defense bar also demanded answers on how such crucial evidence stayed buried for so long. TherapyNotes. Initially, she had represented herself in answer to the complaints lodged against her, but later, she turned to Susan Sachs, who represented her since, not just on the Penate lawsuit, but also on any other case that emerged as the result of her actions in Amherst. | A judge sentenced Dookhan to three years in prison; she was granted parole in April 2016. Lab's standards on a fairly regular basis beginning in late 2004 or early 2005," the attorney general's report notes in launching its recounting of the chemist's drug-taking journey . 2023 Cinemaholic Inc. All rights reserved. If they'd kept digging, defendants might still have learned the crucial facts. It's not as bad as Dookhan, they asserted and implied over and over. The cocaine, found in an unsealed, completed drug-testing kit, tested negativemeaning Farak had seemingly replaced the formerly "positive" drugs with falsified substances. Reporting for this story was supported by the Fund for Investigative Journalism. I felt euphoric, Kogan wrote of Farak. A few months before her arrest, Farak's counselor recommended in-patient rehab. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); NEXT: Zoning Makes the Green New Deal Impossible. 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. Verner, who testified that he didn't "micromanage" Kaczmarek, escaped criticism. ", Prosecutors maintained that Faraks rogue behavior spanned just a few months. Another three days later, state police conducted a full search of Farak's workstation, finding a vial of powder that tested positive for oxycodone, plus 11.7 grams of cocaine in a desk drawer. One colleague called her the "super woman of the lab. Listen Live: Classic and Contemporary Celtic, Listen Live: Cape, Coast and Islands NPR Station, Boston nonprofit Street2Ivy is producing this generation's entrepreneurs. 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. 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. During her trial, her defense lawyer Elaine Pourinski said that Farak wasnt taking drugs to party, but instead to control her depression. | 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. Relying on an investigation conducted by state police, the judges According to the Daily Hampshire Gazette, Farak graduated with awards and distinctions. The governor also tapped a local attorney, David Meier, to count how many individuals' cases might be tainted. The last contact information provided by her, in response to Penates allegations, placed her residence in Hatfield, Massachusetts. Since then, she has kept a low profile. Due to the conviction, prosecutors were forced to dismiss more than . Coakley assigned the case against Dookhan to Assistant Attorney General Anne Kaczmarek and her supervisor, John Verner. Still, the state was acquiring evidence. ", The chemist, Sonja Farak, worked at the state drug lab in Amherst, Massachusetts, for more than eight years. But she insisted the drugs didn't compromise her worka belief that one judge would aptly declare "belies logic.". The lawsuit names Kaczmarek, Farak and three members of the state police. Because she did so, Plaintiff served more than five years in a state prison.". Terms Of Use, (Annie Dookhan (left) and Sonja Farak, Associated Press). Together, we can create a more connected and informed world. 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. 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. Approximately one year later, she pled guilty to tampering with evidence, unlawful possession, and stealing narcotics. She was sentenced to 18 months in jail plus five years of probation. 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. GBH News Center for Investigative Reporting. Kaczmarek, along with former assistant attorneys general Kris Foster and John Verner, all face possible sanctions. ordered a report on the history of her illicit behavior. Meier put the number at 40,323 defendants, though some have called that an overestimate. Shawn Musgrave is a reporter who was until recently based in Boston. While Dookhan had tampered with evidence and indulged in dry-labbing, Farak stole from her workplace. 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." Her medical records included notes from Faraks therapist in Amherst, Anna Kogan. On top of that, it was also ensured that no analyst would ever work without supervision. Farak admitted to being on a list of drugs while working between 2004 and her 2013 arrest. The Dookhan prosecution was barely underway, a grand jury having returned indictments a few weeks earlier. On a Friday afternoon in January 2013, a call came in to Coakley's office: "We have another Annie Dookhan out west.". The chemist, Sonja Farak, worked at the state drug lab in Amherst, Massachusetts, for more than eight years. Farak trabaj en el laboratorio Amherst desde el verano de 2004 y poco despus comenz a tomar las drogas del laboratorio. This article originally appeared in print under the headline "The Chemists and the Cover-Up". 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, 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. Her reporting focuses on mental health, criminal justice and education. Farak apparently still tested each caseunlike Annie Dookhan, another Massachusetts chemist who was arrested five months prior to Farak for fabricating test results. That motion was denied, and the notice letters will explain Farak's tampering without any mention of prosecutorial misconduct. 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. 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. His is one of what lawyers say could be thousands of convictions questioned in the wake of the Farak scandal. answered that the state considered the evidence irrelevant to any case other than Faraks.. 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. YouTube "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. You can check your records electronically by following this link: https://icori.chs.state.ma.us. 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. Chemist Sonja Farak pleaded guilty to "tampering with evidence" back in 2014 and was sentenced to 18 months in prison. In 2017, a different judge ruled that Foster's actions constituted a "fraud upon the court," calling the letter "deliberately misleading." In a March 2013 Sonja Farak. Two weeks after Ryans discovery, the Attorney Generals Office 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. Episode 2. ", Prosecutors nationwide pretty uniformly backed this argument, which the Supreme Court rejected in a 54 opinion. 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. They were all rendered unacceptable. Faraks therapist, Anna Kogan, wrote in her notes that Farak was worried about Nikki finding out about her addiction as well as the possible legal issues if she were ever caught. Sonja Farak, a chemist with a longterm mental health struggle, is the catalyst of the story, but it doesn't end with her. Penate argued the court should follow those findings. She started smoking crack cocaine in 2011 and was soon using it 10 to 12 times a day. Joseph . Kaczmarek wrote back. Grand Jury Transcript - Sonja Farak - September 16, 2015. How to Fix a Drug Scandal: With Shannon O'Neill, Karl Kenzler, Paul Solotaroff, Scott Allen. One thing that How to Fix a Drug Scandal makes clear is that it wasnt all Sonja Faraks fault. 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. But in a . They were found with their packaging sliced open and their contents apparently altered. Months after Farak pleaded guilty in January 2014, Ryan filed a Over the next four years, Farak consumed nearly all of it. | | 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. Deval Patrick's office didn't learn about the protocol breach until December 2011. Yet Dookhan's brazen crimes went undetected for ages. A. But she worried they might be privileged as health information. 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. A status hearing on Penate's suit, which was filed in 2017, is scheduled for July. The newest true crime series from Netflix, How to Fix a Drug Scandal, was released on April 1, 2020. Over time, Farak's drug use turned to cocaine, LSD and, eventually, crack. Lets find out. 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. 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. Subscribe to Reason Roundup, a wrap up of the last 24 hours of news, delivered fresh each morning. "Forensic evidence is not uniquely immune from the risk of manipulation," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority. At the time of Penates trial, the state Attorney Generals Office contended Faraks misdeeds dated back only as far as 2012. The Netflix docuseries ends by acknowledging that Farak received an 18-month sentence, and that defense attorney Luke Ryan was able . Gov. 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. Former chemist Annie Dookhan was convicted in 2013 on charges of improperly testing drug evidence at a drug lab in Boston. Grand Jury Transcript - Sonja Farak - September 16, 2015 Contributed by Shawn Musgrave (Musgrave Investigations) p. 1. 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. And then the bigger investigation was going to be someone else.". "It would be difficult to overstate the significance of these documents, Ryan She couldn't be sure which cases these were, Dookhan told investigators. compelled release of additional drug treatment records, which indicated Farak used a variety of drugs that she stole from the lab for years. 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. "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. Its no big deal, 14-year-old Farak said to the Panama City News Herald. After serving just a year of her 18 month sentence, Farak was released from prison in 2015. A Powerful EHR to Manage a Thriving Practice. 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. The lead prosecutor on Farak's case knew about the diaries, as did supervisors at the state attorney general's office. ", Everyone Practices Cancel Culture | Opinion, Deplatforming Free Speech is Dangerous | Opinion. 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. This was not true, as Nassif's department later conceded. 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. Her access to evidence was not restricted, and she continued testifying in court. Defense attorneys had. 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. Martha Coakley, then attorney general for the state, argued in Melendez-Diaz that a chemist's certificate contains only "neutral, objective facts." Foster She was released in 2015, as reported by Mass Live. On the surface, their crimes dont seem as injurious and they dont seem to enjoy inflicting pain on others. Penate alleged Kaczmarek's actions violated his "Brady rights," which require prosecutors to turn over potentially exculpatory evidence to defense counsel. His email was one of more than 800 released with the Velis-Merrigan report. 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. The disgraced chemist was sentenced to less than two years behind bars in 2014, following her guilty pleas for stealing cocaine from the lab. According to an Attorney General Offices report, Farak attended Temple University in Philadelphia for graduate school, which is where she became a recreational drug user. The report It included information about the type of drugs she tampered with. another filing. She was sentenced in 2014 to 18 months in prison and 5 years of probation. Faraks wife had her own mental health problems, and according to Rolling Stone, Farak would have conflict with her wife every night at home. 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. Several defense attorneys who called for the Velis-Merrigan investigation say the former judges and their state police investigators got it wrong. Foster consulted Kaczmarek about the files contents, according to an 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.". TherapyNotes is a complete practice management system with everything you need to manage patient records, schedule appointments, meet with patients remotely, create rich documentation, and bill insurance, right at your fingertips. 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. Per her own court testimony, as shown in the docu-series, Farak started working at a state drug lab in Amherst in 2004. In 2019, she was seen leaving the Springfield Federal Court but declined to comment on the status of the case. Where is Sonja now? But a crucial issue was not before the court. 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? 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.. "It was almost like Dookhan wanted to get caught," one of her former co-workers told state police in 2012. This is the story of Farak's drug-induced wrongdoings, and it's the. 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. Why Won't Maryland Sell Me a Goddamn Beer? The prosecutors have been tied to the drug lab scandal involving disgraced former state chemist Sonja Farak, who admitted to stealing and using drugs from an Amherst state lab. Read More: Where is Sonja Farak Sister Now? Get all the latest from Sanditon on GBH Passport, How one Brookline studio helps artists with disabilities thrive. As . 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. The place was closed as soon as Faraks crimes came to light. Among the papers they seized were handwritten worksheets Farak completed for drug-abuse therapy. Farak wasn't the first Massachusetts chemist to tamper with drug evidence. As How to Fix a Drug Scandal explores, Farak had long struggled with her mental . 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. The Farak documents indicate she used drugs on the very day she certified samples as heroin in Penates case. 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. 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. This is merely a fishing expedition, Foster wrote in At the time of her arrest, she had resided in 37 Laurel Park in Northampton. After serving for 13 months, she was released on parole in 2015. 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." Deborah Becker Twitter Host/ReporterDeborah Becker is a senior correspondent and host at WBUR. Dookhan was now spending less time at her lab bench and more time testifying in court about her results. 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.". 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. 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. wrote she "tried to resist using @ work, but ended up failing." It ultimately took a blatant violation to expose Dookhan, and even then her bosses twisted themselves in knots to hold on to their "super woman.". And both pose the obvious question about how chemists could behave so badly for years without detection. Mucha gente que vio el programa se pregunta: dnde est Sonja Farak ahora? 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. 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. Join us. February 2013 email, to which he attached the worksheets. Faraks notes also noted the mental health worksheets found in Faraks car, which had not been released. What Did Sonja Farak Do, Exactly? Netflixs How to Fix a Drug Scandal Story: 5 Fast Facts. The court also dismissed all meth cases processed at the lab since Farak started in 2004. "No reasonable individual could have failed to appreciate the unlawfulness of [Kaczmarek's] actions in these circumstances," Robertson wrote in her ruling. She said, It was about coping; it certainly wasnt about having fun; I dont think shes had fun in quite a while.. Regarding the cases that she had handled, the Massachusetts courts threw out every case in the Amherst lab during her tenure. Investigators either missed or declined opportunities to dig very deep. You have been subscribed to WBUR Today. Thank you! State prosecutors gave Farak the immunity they had declined to grant two years earlier, then asked when she started analyzing samples while high. The Hinton drug lab, operated by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, appears to have been run largely on the honor system. She started seeing a substance abuse therapist around this time. Joseph Ballou, lead investigator for the state police, called them the most important documents from the car. Follow us so you don't miss a thing! 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 she proceeded on the hunch that Farak only became addicted in the months before her arrest, and her colleagues stonewalled people who were skeptical of that timeline. Because state prosecutors hid Farak's substance abuse diaries, it took far too long for the full timeline of her crimes to become public. As he leafed through three boxes of evidence, he found the substance abuse worksheets and diaries. Among other items, Kaczmarek 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. In the aftermath, the court felt it necessary to make clear that "no prosecutorhas the authority to decline to disclose exculpatory information.". She was arrested in 2013 when the supervisor at the Amherst lab was made aware that two samples were missing. "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. "It was Defendant who had the responsibility within the AGO [attorney general's office] to see that the Farak investigation materials were disseminated to the DAOs [district attorneys' offices]," Robertson wrote, adding there is no evidence anyone from the attorney general's office sent the potentially exculpatory evidence to those offices.". 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. How to Fix a Drug Scandal is an American true crime documentary miniseries that was released on Netflix on April 1, 2020. Officials recognized the worksheets for what they were: near-indisputable confessions. Kaczmarek has repeatedly testified she did not act intentionally and that she thought the worksheets had been turned over to the district attorneys who prosecuted the cases involved. Since her release, she has kept a low profile and managed to stay out of the public . From the April 2023 issue, Billy Binion As Kaczmarek herself later observed, Farak essentially had "a drugstore at her disposal" from her first day at the Amherst lab. Penate is seeking a new trial, contending the conviction should be reversed because of prosecutorial misconduct and evidence tainted by Farak. Shortly into her role at Amherst, Farak decided to try liquid methamphetamine to ease her personal struggles. And when the tests she did run came back negative, Dookhan added controlled substances to the vials. In a 61 ruling by the Supreme Judicial Court in 2017, the defense bar, led by public defenders and the Massachusetts branch of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), won the dismissal of almost every conviction based on Dookhan's analysismore than 36,000 cases in all. Compromised drug samples often fit the definition. She later called this dismissive exchange a "plea to God.". memo, Kaczmarek told her supervisors that "Farak's admissions on her 'emotional worksheets' recovered from her car detail her struggle with substance abuse.
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