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. Faraks notes also 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.". She had unrestricted access to the evidence room. We were unable to subscribe you to WBUR Today. motion on behalf of another client to see the evidence. ", Prosecutors maintained that Faraks rogue behavior spanned just a few months. She had been accused of intentional infliction of emotional distress in addition to the conspiracy to violate [Penates] civil rights.. Sonja Farak worked as a chemist for the state of Massachusetts, specializing in identifying illegal substances. From 2004 to 2013, Farak took advantage of . Sonja Farak, a chemist with a longterm mental health struggle, is the catalyst of the story, but it doesn't end with her. There is no allegation of misconduct against the local prosecutors who presented the case against Penate in Hampden County Superior Court. The cocaine, found in an unsealed, completed drug-testing kit, tested negativemeaning Farak had seemingly replaced the formerly "positive" drugs with falsified substances. 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. 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. This might not have mattered as much if the investigators had followed the evidence that Farak had been using drugs for at least a year and almost certainly longer. Democratic Gov. Coakley's office finally launched a criminal investigation in July 2012, more than a year after the infraction was discovered by Dookhan's supervisors. Inwardly though, Sonja Farak was striving. February 2013 email, to which he attached the worksheets. 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 a letter filed with the Supreme Court, Julianne Nassif, a lab supervisor, wrote that Hinton had "appropriate quality control" measures. 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. Read More: Where is Sonja Farak Sister Now? 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. 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. Still, the state was acquiring evidence. 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. ", In 2004, her first full year at the lab, Dookhan reported analyzing approximately 700 samples per month. With the lab's ample drug supply, she was able to sneak the drug each day from a jug that resided in the shared workspace. wrote she "tried to resist using @ work, but ended up failing." Compromised drug samples often fit the definition. Investigators gave that information to Kaczmarek and the state AG's office,according tohearings before thestate board that disciplines attorneys. Since her release, she has kept a low profile and managed to stay out of the public . The latest true crime offering from Netflix is the documentary series "How to Fix a Drug Scandal." It dives into the story of Sonja Farak, a chemist who worked for a Massachusetts state drug. Dookhan had seeded public mistrust in the criminal justice system, which "now becomes an issue in every criminal trial for every defendant.". From the March 2019 issue, "Tried to resist using @ work, but ended up failing," the forensic chemist scribbled on a diary worksheet she kept as part of her substance abuse therapy. She even made her own crack in the lab. Ryan then filed a Kaczmarek was now juggling two scandals on opposite sides of the state. The state's top court took an even harsher view, ruling in October 2018 that the attorney general's office as an institution was responsible for the prosecutorial misconduct of its former employees. Farak started at Amherst lab in Aug 2004 p. 32. Out of "an abundance of caution," Kaczmarek didn't present them to the grand jury that was convened to determine whether to indict Farak. Over time, Farak's drug use turned to cocaine, LSD and, eventually, crack. Without access to the diaries, the Springfield judge in 2013 found that Farak had starting stealing from samples in summer 2012. The last contact information provided by her, in response to Penates allegations, placed her residence in Hatfield, Massachusetts. 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. As federal food benefits decline, Mass. After serving for 13 months, she was released on parole in 2015. That motion was denied, and the notice letters will explain Farak's tampering without any mention of prosecutorial misconduct. Gioia called for evidentiary hearings so prosecutors can be asked about what they knew, when they knew it, and what they did with their knowledge., Luke Ryan, Penates trial lawyer, said that the state police officers working on the report failed to obtain an appropriate understanding of the events that transpired before they were assigned to this investigation.". 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. At this point, Farakunlike Dookhandidn't admit anything. High Massachusetts Lab Chemist Causes Thousands Of Drug Cases To Be Dismissed. But she worried they might be privileged as health information. But unlike with Dookhan, no one launched a bigger investigation of Farak. "The gravity of the present case cannot be overstated," Kaczmarek wrote in her memo recommending a prison sentence of five to seven years. 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. Yet Dookhan's brazen crimes went undetected for ages. 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." "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. With the Dookhan case so fresh, reporters immediately labeled Farak "the second chemist. 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. "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. 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. In court, she added that there was "no smoking gun" in the evidence. ", Officials rushed to downplay the situation in Amherst. The governor also tapped a local attorney, David Meier, to count how many individuals' cases might be tainted. She was trying to suppress mental health issues, depression in specific, and she attempted to kill herself in high school, according to Rolling Stone. Approximately one year later, she pled guilty to tampering with evidence, unlawful possession, and stealing narcotics. What Did Sonja Farak Do, Exactly? 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. She was arrested in 2013 when the supervisor at the Amherst lab was made aware that two samples were missing. Sonja Farak in How to Fix a Drug Scandal. 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. Penate alleged Kaczmarek's actions violated his "Brady rights," which require prosecutors to turn over potentially exculpatory evidence to defense counsel. Despite being a star child of the family, Sonja suffered from the mental illnesses that haunted her even in adulthood. It declined Farak's offer of a detailed confession in exchange for leniency, nixing the offer without even negotiating terms. They were found with their packaging sliced open and their contents apparently altered. In a rare move, the judicial office that brings disciplinary cases against lawyers in Massachusetts has accused a prosecutor of professional misconduct, including allegations that she failed to share critical information with defense lawyers and attempted to interfere with defense witnesses. Farak was a former lab chemist at a lab in Amherst, Massachusetts and was convicted of stealing and using drugs from the lab where she worked. During her trial, her defense lawyer Elaine Pourinski said that Farak wasnt taking drugs to party, but instead to control her depression. A drug chemist . Martha Coakley, then attorney general for the state, argued in Melendez-Diaz that a chemist's certificate contains only "neutral, objective facts." Former chemist Annie Dookhan was convicted in 2013 on charges of improperly testing drug evidence at a drug lab in Boston. Listen Live: Classic and Contemporary Celtic, Listen Live: Cape, Coast and Islands NPR Station, Boston nonprofit Street2Ivy is producing this generation's entrepreneurs. Deval Patrick's office didn't learn about the protocol breach until December 2011. "If she were suffering from back injurymaybe she took some oxys?" concluded there was no evidence of prosecutorial misconduct or obstruction of justice in matters related to the Farak case. answered that the state considered the evidence irrelevant to any case other than Faraks.. "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. The drug lab technician was sent to prison for 18 months, but was released in 2015. After the Supreme Court's decision, a skeptical colleague started tracking how many microscope slides Dookhan used to test samples for cocaine. Defense attorneys had. ", Everyone Practices Cancel Culture | Opinion, Deplatforming Free Speech is Dangerous | Opinion. (Netflix) A former state chemist, Sonja Farak, made headlines in 2013 when she was arrested for stealing and using drugs from a laboratory. As Solotaroff recounts in detail, Massachusetts attorney Luke Ryan represented two people who were accused of drug charges that Farak had analyzed . In 2019, the chemist was spotted at federal court in Springfield, MA , attending a civil case. Why Won't Maryland Sell Me a Goddamn Beer? A few months before her arrest, Farak's counselor recommended in-patient rehab. Faraks wife had her own mental health problems, and according to Rolling Stone, Farak would have conflict with her wife every night at home. . "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.". Terms Of Use, (Annie Dookhan (left) and Sonja Farak, Associated Press). One was clearly dated November 16, 2011a year and two months before her arrest. Sonja Farak stole, ingested or manufactured drugs almost every day for eight years while working as a chemist at a state lab in Amherst, Massachusetts. | Join half a million readers enjoying Newsweek's free newsletters, Sonja Farak is the subject of Netflix's "How To Fix a Drug Scandal. After weeks of hearings, a "special hearing officer" selected by the board recommended potential sanctions against them all. 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. 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. Farak as a young. 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. 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. As a teenager, she had attempted suicide. State police took these worksheets from Farak's car in January 2013, the same day they arrested her for tampering with evidence and for cocaine possession. 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. 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 medical records stated that she did not have an existing drug problem that was amplified by her access to more substances. 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 . Foster and another assistant attorney general assented to that motion. Sonja Farak is at the center of Netflix's new true crime docuseries, How To Fix a Drug Scandal. | She was released in 2015, as reported by Mass Live. The criminal prosecution wasn't the only investigation of the Dookhan scandal. 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. 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 . A Powerful EHR to Manage a Thriving Practice. 3.3.2023 5:45 PM, Jacob Sullum Scalia may as well have been describing Dookhan. A year later, in October 2014, prosecutors relented, granting access to the full evidence in Farak's case to attorney Luke Ryan. Farak was arrested the next day, and the attorney general's office assigned the case to Anne Kaczmarek. 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. 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." Privacy Policy | She soon crossed all these lines. Many more are likely to follow, with the total expected to exceed 50,000. One of the reasons for the decrepit state and standard of the Amherst lab was the lack of funds. another filing. Ryan finally viewed the file in the attorney generals offices in October 2014. In worksheet notes dated Thursday, Dec. 22, Farak Cleverly omitting pronouns, she wrote that "after reviewing" the file, "every documenthas been disclosed." Two weeks after Ryans discovery, the Attorney Generals Office "These drugswere tested fairly," Coakley claimed the day after Farak's arrest. Her medical records included notes from Faraks therapist in Amherst, Anna Kogan. 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. 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. The Attorney Generals Office, Velis and Merrigan and the state police declined to answer questions about the handling of the Farak evidence. 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." | 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. She was sentenced in 2014 to 18 months in prison and 5 years of probation. Shawn Musgrave You can check your records electronically by following this link: https://icori.chs.state.ma.us. Among the papers they seized were handwritten worksheets Farak completed for drug-abuse therapy. 3.4.2023 8:00 AM, Reason Staff In 2019, she was seen leaving the Springfield Federal Court but declined to comment on the status of the case. In January 2014, she pleaded guilty to evidence tampering and drug possession. The hotline is open Monday through Friday, from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thank you! 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. 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. In 2017, a different judge ruled that Foster's actions constituted a "fraud upon the court," calling the letter "deliberately misleading." Months after Farak pleaded guilty in January 2014, Ryan filed a "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.". "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. READ NEXT: Netflixs How to Fix a Drug Scandal Story: 5 Fast Facts, Sonja Farak: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know, Please review our privacy policy here: https://heavy.com/privacy-policy/, Copyright 2023 Heavy, Inc. All rights reserved. Powered by WordPress.com VIP. His email was one of more than 800 released with the Velis-Merrigan report. memo, Kaczmarek told her supervisors that "Farak's admissions on her 'emotional worksheets' recovered from her car detail her struggle with substance abuse. motion with Hampden Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Kinder to see the evidence for himself. Farak signed a certification of drug samples in Penate's case on Dec. 22, 2011. Get all the latest from Sanditon on GBH Passport, How one Brookline studio helps artists with disabilities thrive. 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 The defense bar also demanded answers on how such crucial evidence stayed buried for so long. And when the tests she did run came back negative, Dookhan added controlled substances to the vials. Her wrongdoings were exposed when unsealed cocaine and a crack pipe were found under her desk. Lets find out. The next month, Ryan asked again. In the aftermath, the court felt it necessary to make clear that "no prosecutorhas the authority to decline to disclose exculpatory information.". I felt euphoric, Kogan wrote of Farak. The attorney general's officeKaczmarek or her supervisorscould have asked a judge to determine whether the worksheets were actually privileged, as Kaczmarek later acknowledged. "Whether law enforcement officials overlooked these papers or intentionally suppressed them is a question for another day.". Patrick appointed the state inspector general to look into it. Reporting for this story was supported by the Fund for Investigative Journalism. Foster Several defense attorneys who called for the Velis-Merrigan investigation say the former judges and their state police investigators got it wrong. 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.". And when defense attorneys tried to do it themselves, Coakley's office blocked their efforts. While Dookhan had tampered with evidence and indulged in dry-labbing, Farak stole from her workplace. 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. 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. Together, we can create a more connected and informed world. Kaczmarek wrote back. Foster consulted Kaczmarek about the files contents, according to an 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. Patrick said "the most important take-home" was that "no individual's due process rights were compromised.". The Netflix docuseries ends by acknowledging that Farak received an 18-month sentence, and that defense attorney Luke Ryan was able . After she was caught, Farak pleaded guilty to stealing drugs from the lab and was sentenced to prison time of 18 months. Kaczmarek is one of three former prosecutors whose role in the prosecution of Farak later became the focus of several lawsuits and disciplinary hearings. . Where is Sonja now? Before her sentencing, Farak failed a drug test while out on bail, according to Mass Live. In 2009, Farak branched out to the lab's amphetamine, phentermine, and cocaine standards. Per her own court testimony, as shown in the docu-series, Farak started working at a state drug lab in Amherst in 2004. 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. 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. As the state's top court put it, the criminal investigation into Farak was "cursory at best.". To multiple courts' amazement, her incessant drug use never caught the attention of her co-workers. 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. 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. 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. Without even interviewing Foster, they determined there was "no evidence" of obstruction of justice by her, by Kaczmarek, or by any state prosecutor. (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. Judge Kinder denied Ryans motion. Given the account that Farak was a law-abiding citizen, it is questioned as to how an Penate is seeking a new trial, contending the conviction should be reversed because of prosecutorial misconduct and evidence tainted by Farak. The Farak scandal came as the state grappled with another drug lab crisis. The governor didn't appoint the inspector general or anyone else to determine how long Farak was altering samples or running analyses while high. When grand jury materials were eventually released to defense attorneys, then, they did not mention that these documents existed. The Amherst lab had called state police when the two missing samples were noticed in 2013. 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? 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. Kaczmarek quoted the worksheets in a memo to her supervisor, Verner, and others, summarizing that they revealed Farak's "struggle with substance abuse." Farak had started taking drugs on the job within months of joining the Amherst lab in 2004. ", The chemist, Sonja Farak, worked at the state drug lab in Amherst, Massachusetts, for more than eight years. They pulled her aside as she walked back to the courthouse from her car, where she had smoked "a fair amount of crack" during her lunch break.
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