3.3.2023 5:30 PM, Joe Lancaster "Forensic evidence is not uniquely immune from the risk of manipulation," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority. | She married Lee after starting her job, but their marriage was rocky. ", In 2004, her first full year at the lab, Dookhan reported analyzing approximately 700 samples per month. Gov. Together, we can create a more connected and informed world. The Chemists and the Cover-Up - Reason.com They wrote that Lee, disabled by a stew of mental ailments, [spent] her hours surfing the Web in a haze.. It's been like this forever, or at least since girlhood. On paper, these numbers made Dookhan the most productive chemist at Hinton; the next most productive averaged around 300 samples per month. Penate alleged Kaczmarek's actions violated his "Brady rights," which require prosecutors to turn over potentially exculpatory evidence to defense counsel. Kaczmarek wrote back. "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." Sonja Farak, a chemist with a longterm mental health struggle, is the catalyst of the story, but it doesn't end with her. Sonja Farak pleaded guilty to stealing samples of drugs from an Amherst drug lab. Faraks wife had her own mental health problems, and according to Rolling Stone, Farak would have conflict with her wife every night at home. She was sentenced to 18 months in jail plus five years of probation. As Kaczmarek herself later observed, Farak essentially had "a drugstore at her disposal" from her first day at the Amherst lab. As . 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. Prosecutors have an obligation to give the defense exculpatory evidence including anything that could weaken evidence against defendants. She tried to kill herself in high school, according to Rolling Stone. "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.". Cleverly omitting pronouns, she wrote that "after reviewing" the file, "every documenthas been disclosed." And when the tests she did run came back negative, Dookhan added controlled substances to the vials. 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. Between the two women, 47,000 drug convictions and guilty pleas have been dismissed in the last two years, many for misdemeanor possession. Farak was released from prison in 2015 and has kept a low profile since. The Hinton drug lab, operated by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, appears to have been run largely on the honor system. B. ut when Penates lawyer tried to obtain the documents not certain what was in them before his clients 2013 trial, he was rebuffed by state prosecutors who said the papers were irrelevant according to emails included in investigative reports unsealed earlier this month. "No reasonable individual could have failed to appreciate the unlawfulness of [Kaczmarek's] actions in these circumstances," Robertson wrote in her ruling. And when defense attorneys tried to do it themselves, Coakley's office blocked their efforts. Before her sentencing, Farak failed a drug test while out on bail, according to Mass Live. In 2017, a different judge ruled that Foster's actions constituted a "fraud upon the court," calling the letter "deliberately misleading." 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. . El 6 de enero de 2014, Farak se declar culpable de los cargos en su contra. A drug chemist . "As the gatekeeper to this evidence, she failed to turn over documents, and she adamantly opposed the requests for access. Where Is Sonja Farak Now? sonja farak - masslive.com Did Falsified Drug Tests Lead to Wrongful Convictions? - Rolling Stone "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. The special hearing officer found Kaczmarek "displayed no remorse" and was "not candid" during the disciplinary proceedings. 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. Penate's suit said Kaczmarek withheld evidence that Farak used drugs at the lab for longer than the Massachusetts attorney general's office first claimed, and that he would not have been imprisoned based on tainted evidence. compelled release of additional drug treatment records, which indicated Farak used a variety of drugs that she stole from the lab for years. 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. 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. Who is Sonja Farak? She even made her own crack in the lab. Patrick said "the most important take-home" was that "no individual's due process rights were compromised.". "A forensic analyst responding to a request from a law enforcement official may feel pressureor have an incentiveto alter the evidence in a manner favorable to the prosecution.". Get all the latest from Sanditon on GBH Passport, How one Brookline studio helps artists with disabilities thrive. How to Fix a Drug Scandal: With Shannon O'Neill, Karl Kenzler, Paul Solotaroff, Scott Allen. The fact that she ran analyses while high and regularly dipped into samples casts doubt on thousands of convictions. Sonja Farak: Prosecutors kept drug abuse evidence secret so - MEAWW 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. 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. 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. Farak had started taking drugs on the job within months of joining the Amherst lab in 2004. 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. Episode 1. The hotline is open Monday through Friday, from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. another filing. 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. Please note that if your case has been identified for dismissal, it could take approximately 2-3 months for the relevant court records to be updated. 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. 1. "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. She was sentenced in 2014 to 18 months in prison and 5 years of probation. She was trying to suppress mental health issues, depression in specific, and she attempted to kill herself in high school, according to Rolling Stone. Instead, she submitted an intentionally vague letter to the judge claiming defense attorneys already had everything. 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. email highlighted in the Velis-Merrigan report. Deval Patrick's office didn't learn about the protocol breach until December 2011. Without even interviewing Foster, they determined there was "no evidence" of obstruction of justice by her, by Kaczmarek, or by any state prosecutor. 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. Our posture is to not delve into the twists and turns of the investigation or the report and to let it stand on its own, Merrigan said. memo, Kaczmarek told her supervisors that "Farak's admissions on her 'emotional worksheets' recovered from her car detail her struggle with substance abuse. Sgt. But whether anyone investigated her conduct during a brief stint working at the state's Boston drug lab is at . Farak as a young. Magistrate Judge Robertson denied a request in Penate's lawsuit that Kaczmarek be prohibited from contesting the special hearing officer's findings. A hearing on their motions is scheduled next month. 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 . 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. For people with disabilities needing assistance with the Public Files, contact Glenn Heath at 617-300-3268. Her medical records included notes from Faraks therapist in Amherst, Anna Kogan. 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. Foster
From 2004 to 2013, Farak took advantage of . She was also under the influence when she took the stand during her trial. 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. Both have since left the attorney general's office for other government positions. 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. According to the Daily Hampshire Gazette, Farak graduated with awards and distinctions. 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." Velis said he stood by the findings. Thus, only defendants whose evidence she tested in the six-month window before her arrest could challenge their cases. Sonja Farak, a chemist with a longterm mental health struggle, is the catalyst of the story, but it doesn't end with her. She was ar-rested for tampering with evidence while abusing narcotics at work. 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. Over time, Farak's drug use turned to cocaine, LSD and, eventually, crack. A local prosecutor also asked Ballou to look into a case Farak had tested as far back as 2005. Among the papers they seized were handwritten worksheets Farak completed for drug-abuse therapy. Meanwhile, other top prosecutors, including Coakley, largely escaped criticism for their collective failure to hand over evidence that they were bound by constitutional mandate to share with defendants. 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. It's not as bad as Dookhan, they asserted and implied over and over. It's Boston local news in one concise, fun and informative email. Martha Coakley, then attorney general for the state, argued in Melendez-Diaz that a chemist's certificate contains only "neutral, objective facts." 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. Kaczmarek is one of three former prosecutors whose role in the prosecution of Farak later became the focus of several lawsuits and disciplinary hearings. 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 disgraced chemist was sentenced to less than two years behind bars in 2014, following her guilty pleas for stealing cocaine from the lab. But unlike with Dookhan, no one launched a bigger investigation of Farak. On a Friday afternoon in January 2013, a call came in to Coakley's office: "We have another Annie Dookhan out west.". She had been accused of intentional infliction of emotional distress in addition to the conspiracy to violate [Penates] civil rights.. Having barely investigated her, prosecutors indicted Farak only for the samples in her possession the day she was caught. Farak had started taking drugs on the job within months of joining the lab. Instead, Kaczmarek provided copies to Farak's own attorney and asked that all evidence from Farak's car, including the worksheets, be kept away from prying defense attorneys representing the thousands of people convicted of drug crimes based on Farak's work. Our streamlined software is accessible wherever and whenever you . Though. Patrick appointed the state inspector general to look into it. In addition to ordering the dismissal of many thousands of cases, the Supreme Judicial Court directed a committee to draft a "checklist" for prosecutors, clarifying their obligation to turn over evidence to defendants. ", The chemist, Sonja Farak, worked at the state drug lab in Amherst, Massachusetts, for more than eight years. Her ar-rest led to the dismissal of thousands of drug cases in Massachusetts. Coakley did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story. But Ryan, who represented Penate, suspected it was more extensive. "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. Farak. Where is Sonja Farak Now? - The Cinemaholic At the time of her arrest, she had resided in 37 Laurel Park in Northampton. A few months before her arrest, Farak's counselor recommended in-patient rehab. Farak received a sentence of 18 months in jail and 5 years of probation. 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.". The next month, Ryan asked again. Robertson rejected Kaczmarek's claims she should not be held responsible for the turning over of exculpatory evidence because she was not part of the "prosecution team" in Penate's case. State prosecutors gave Farak the immunity they had declined to grant two years earlier, then asked when she started analyzing samples while high. 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? Sonja Farak in How to Fix a Drug Scandal. 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 . Massachusetts DA seeks to vacate thousands of drug convictions - CNN February 2013 email, to which he attached the worksheets. The attorney general's officeKaczmarek or her supervisorscould have asked a judge to determine whether the worksheets were actually privileged, as Kaczmarek later acknowledged. Her job consisted of testing drugs that have. Investigators gave that information to Kaczmarek and the state AG's office,according tohearings before thestate board that disciplines attorneys. 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. "We shouldn't be in the position of having to be saying, 'Don't close your eyes to the duration and scope of misconduct that may affect a whole lot of cases,'" the exasperated Massachusetts chief justice told prosecutors during oral arguments. With your support, GBH will continue to innovate, inspire and connect through reporting you value that meets todays moments. As he leafed through three boxes of evidence, he found the substance abuse worksheets and diaries. Soon after Dookhan's arrest, Coakley's office asked the governor to order a broader independent probe of the Hinton lab. The defense bar also demanded answers on how such crucial evidence stayed buried for so long. The staff in the new lab was also doubled, and the number of trainees was also increased. Gainey added that Healey is pleased with their conclusion that prosecutors and the state police acted appropriately. 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. With the Dookhan case so fresh, reporters immediately labeled Farak "the second chemist. High Mass. Lab Chemist Causes Over 24,000 Drug Charges To Be Dismissed noted the mental health worksheets found in Faraks car, which had not been released. Where Is Sonja Farak From Netflix's 'Drug Scandal' Doc Now? Coakley's office finally launched a criminal investigation in July 2012, more than a year after the infraction was discovered by Dookhan's supervisors. "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. (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. 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. But in a
Massachusetts prosecutor tied to Sonja Farak drug lab scandal 'actively 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. ordered a report on the history of her illicit behavior. What Happened To Sonja From Netflix Drug Scandal Series - Refinery29 This is the story of Farak's drug-induced wrongdoings, and it's the. She recovered, made it through college and got a job as a chemist at the Amherst Crime Lab, where she tested confiscated drugs. Who Is Sonja Farak From Netflix Docu-Series How To Fix A Drug Scandal 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. Four months after Ryan found the worksheets, Judge Kinder
Massachusetts crime lab scandal worsens: Dookhan and Farak. While Dookhan had tampered with evidence and indulged in dry-labbing, Farak stole from her workplace. Her notes record on-the-job drug use ranging from small nips of the lab's baseline. "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.". 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. Hearings could help decide how many of thousands of convictions tainted by Farak's testing may be overturned. a certification of drug samples in Penates case on Dec. 22, 2011. ", Everyone Practices Cancel Culture | Opinion, Deplatforming Free Speech is Dangerous | Opinion. The lead prosecutor on Farak's case knew about the diaries, as did supervisors at the state attorney general's office. She had unrestricted access to the evidence room. Sonja Farak. Farak is amongst one of the 18 defendants battling the lawsuit filed by Rolando Penate. This very well could have been the end of the investigative trail but for a few stubborn defense lawyers, who appealed the ruling. Faraks notes also
motion with Hampden Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Kinder to see the evidence for himself. She is not active on any social media platform and has kept her distance from the press. Introduction. 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. 3.3.2023 4:50 PM, 2022 Reason Foundation | According to the documents released Tuesday, investigators found that Sonja Farak tested drug samples and testified in court while under the influence of methamphetamines, ketamine, cocaine, LSD . Below is an outline of her charges. Massachusetts Chemist Prosecution Leads to Falling Consumer Confidence The judge ordered prosecutors and defense attorneys to coordinate on identifying undisclosed emails related to documents seized from the disgraced state crime lab chemist. The chemist, Sonja Farak, worked at the state drug lab in Amherst, Massachusetts, for more than eight years. At least 11,000 cases have already been dismissed due to fallout from the scandal, with thousands more likely to come. Inwardly though, Sonja Farak was striving.