What Did Sonja Farak Do, Exactly? The Amherst lab had called state police when the two missing samples were noticed in 2013. At some point, the attorney general's office stopped chasing leads entirely. 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. 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. Kaczmarek had obtained the evidence at issue while she was prosecuting Farak on state charges of tampering with evidence and drug possession. Poetically, that landmark case originated from the Hinton lab, although Dookhan didn't conduct the analysis in question. She was sentenced in 2014 to 18 months in prison and 5 years of probation. 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. Kaczmarek argued the findings are subject to appeal. Shawn Musgrave is a reporter who was until recently based in Boston. Release year: 2020. ", Prosecutors nationwide pretty uniformly backed this argument, which the Supreme Court rejected in a 54 opinion. 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. 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's reports were central to thousands of cases, and the fact that she ran analyses while high and regularly dipped into "urge-ful" samples casts doubt on thousands of convictions. The governor also tapped a local attorney, David Meier, to count how many individuals' cases might be tainted. "The mental health worksheets constituted admissions by the state lab chemist assigned to analyze the samples seized in Plaintiffs case that she was stealing and using lab samples to feed a drug addiction at the time she was testing and certifying the samples in Plaintiffs case, including, in one instance, on the very day that she certified a sample," Robertson's ruling reads. Compromised drug samples often fit the definition. (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. Months after Farak pleaded guilty in January 2014, Ryan filed a Sonja Farak, a chemist with a longterm mental health struggle, is the catalyst of the story, but it doesn't end with her. Former chemist Annie Dookhan was convicted in 2013 on charges of improperly testing drug evidence at a drug lab in Boston. But in a Gov. Heres what you need to know about Sonja Farak: Farak was born on January 13, 1978, in Rhode Island to Stanley and Linda Farak. The crucial fact of her longstanding and frequent drug use also never made it into Farak's trial, much less to defendants appealing convictions predicated on her tainted analyses. The last contact information provided by her, in response to Penates allegations, placed her residence in Hatfield, Massachusetts. 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. Damning evidence reveals drug lab chemist Sonja Farak's addictions. Reporting for this story was supported by the Fund for Investigative Journalism. In 2012, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court foundegregious prosecutorial misconduct after an assistant district attorney withheldevidence a judge had ordered him toproduce for the defense of a teenageraccused of statutory rape. The Dookhan prosecution was barely underway, a grand jury having returned indictments a few weeks earlier. 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. 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. In 2019, the chemist was spotted at federal court in Springfield, MA , attending a civil case. Coakley's office finally launched a criminal investigation in July 2012, more than a year after the infraction was discovered by Dookhan's supervisors. His email was one of more than 800 released with the Velis-Merrigan report. In 2009, Farak branched out to the lab's amphetamine, phentermine, and cocaine standards. "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. 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. The twin Massachusetts drug lab scandals are unprecedented in the sheer number of cases thrown out because of forensic misconduct. 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. She had unrestricted access to the evidence room. Thus, only defendants whose evidence she tested in the six-month window before her arrest could challenge their cases. In November 2013, Dookhan pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice, tampering with evidence, and perjury. 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 . Deborah Becker Twitter Host/ReporterDeborah Becker is a senior correspondent and host at WBUR. She played as the starting guard for Portsmouth High Schools freshman team. Farak worked under the influence of drugs for nine years - from 2004 to 2013 - before she was caught. The lead prosecutor on Farak's case knew about the diaries, as did supervisors at the state attorney general's office. Coakley assigned the case against Dookhan to Assistant Attorney General Anne Kaczmarek and her supervisor, John Verner. On the surface, their crimes dont seem as injurious and they dont seem to enjoy inflicting pain on others. It didnt matter whether or not she was the one who did the testing or some other chemist. Name. Grand Jury Transcript - Sonja Farak - September 16, 2015. concluded there was no evidence of prosecutorial misconduct or obstruction of justice in matters related to the Farak case. She's no longer in prison, as Farak has served her sentence. Exhausted from the ongoing scandal in Boston, state officials were desperate for damage control. 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. 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. Due to the conviction, prosecutors were forced to dismiss more than . You can try, Suspensions and a reprimand proposed for prosecutors admonished in drug lab scandal. After serving just a year of her 18 month sentence, Farak was released from prison in 2015. Introduction. 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. A. The scandal led. Earlier that day, a chemist at the Amherst drug lab had tracked two samples that were missing from the evidence locker to Sonja Farak's bench. She couldn't be sure which cases these were, Dookhan told investigators. And so, when she pleaded guilty in January 2014, Farak got what one attorney called "de facto immunity." The staff in the new lab was also doubled, and the number of trainees was also increased. The court also dismissed all meth cases processed at the lab since Farak started in 2004. Support GBH. 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. Ryan finally viewed the file in the attorney generals offices in October 2014. 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 fact that she ran analyses while high and regularly dipped into samples casts doubt on thousands of convictions. 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 the aftermath, the court felt it necessary to make clear that "no prosecutorhas the authority to decline to disclose exculpatory information.". 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. But she insisted the drugs didn't compromise her worka belief that one judge would aptly declare "belies logic.". 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. She married Lee after starting her job, but their marriage was rocky. It's Boston local news in one concise, fun and informative email. In a letter filed with the Supreme Court, Julianne Nassif, a lab supervisor, wrote that Hinton had "appropriate quality control" measures. Listen Live: Classic and Contemporary Celtic, Listen Live: Cape, Coast and Islands NPR Station, Boston nonprofit Street2Ivy is producing this generation's entrepreneurs. Fortunately, the courts largely ignored this shallow investigation. She was trying to suppress mental health issues, depression in specific, and she attempted to kill herself in high school, according to Rolling Stone. Lets find out. 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. Below is an outline of her charges. At least 11,000 cases have already been dismissed due to fallout from the scandal, with thousands more likely to come. The governor didn't appoint the inspector general or anyone else to determine how long Farak was altering samples or running analyses while high.
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