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But she insisted the drugs didn't compromise her worka belief that one judge would aptly declare "belies logic.". Sonja Farak, a chemist with a longterm mental health struggle, is the catalyst of the story, but it doesn't end with her. After contemplating another suicide, she settled on drugs, and the fact that she had such easy access to it at her workplace made it easier for her to get lost in that world. Chemist Sonja Farak pleaded guilty to "tampering with evidence" back in 2014 and was sentenced to 18 months in prison. 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. 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. 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. In a letter filed with the Supreme Court, Julianne Nassif, a lab supervisor, wrote that Hinton had "appropriate quality control" measures. This immediately provoked questions about the thousands of cases in which her findings had contributed to the imprisonment of an individual. She even made her own crack in the lab. 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. Soon after Dookhan's arrest, Coakley's office asked the governor to order a broader independent probe of the Hinton lab. At the time of Penates trial, the state Attorney Generals Office contended Faraks misdeeds dated back only as far as 2012. 1. | Sonja Farak, a chemist with a longterm mental health struggle, is the catalyst of the story, but it doesn't end with her. Farak trabaj en el laboratorio Amherst desde el verano de 2004 y poco despus comenz a tomar las drogas del laboratorio. She recovered, made it through college and got a job as a chemist at the Amherst Crime Lab, where she tested confiscated drugs. 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. Gov. It was an astoundingly light touch for the second state chemist arrested in six months. 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. "Because on almost a daily basis Farak abused narcoticsthere is no assurance that she was able to perform chemical analysis correctly," the judge found. "These drugswere tested fairly," Coakley claimed the day after Farak's arrest. They never searched Farak's computer or her home. A year later, in October 2014, prosecutors relented, granting access to the full evidence in Farak's case to attorney Luke Ryan. She had been accused of intentional infliction of emotional distress in addition to the conspiracy to violate [Penates] civil rights.. 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. 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. Lets find out. wrote she "tried to resist using @ work, but ended up failing." Penate is seeking a new trial, contending the conviction should be reversed because of prosecutorial misconduct and evidence tainted by Farak. Because she did so, Plaintiff served more than five years in a state prison.". This is merely a fishing expedition, Foster wrote in May 2003 started working in Hinton drug lab p. 14. motion on behalf of another client to see the evidence. The surveillance of the chemists as well as the standards and the confiscated drugs has also been increased considerably. As a teenager, she had attempted suicide. Local prosecutors also remained in the dark. 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. Maybe it's not a matter of checklists or reminders that prosecutors have to keep their eyes open for improprieties. And so, when she pleaded guilty in January 2014, Farak got what one attorney called "de facto immunity." 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. The criminal prosecution wasn't the only investigation of the Dookhan scandal. The Dookhan prosecution was barely underway, a grand jury having returned indictments a few weeks earlier. The fact that she ran analyses while high and regularly dipped into samples casts doubt on thousands of convictions. That motion was denied, and the notice letters will explain Farak's tampering without any mention of prosecutorial misconduct. "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.". From 2004 to 2013, Farak took advantage of . Farak admitted in testimony that she began using drugs almost as soon as she started working at the Massachusetts State Crime Lab in Amherst. When the Farak scandal erupted, that misconduct came into view. After graduating from Portsmouth High School, Farak attended the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where she got a bachelor of science degree in biochemistry in 2000. 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. On top of that, it was also ensured that no analyst would ever work without supervision. motion with Hampden Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Kinder to see the evidence for himself. It's been like this forever, or at least since girlhood. 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." Who is Sonja Farak, the former state drug lab chemist featured in the show? In November 2013, Dookhan pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice, tampering with evidence, and perjury. Despite clear indications that Farak used a variety of narcoticsher worksheets mentioned phentermine, and that vial of powdered oxycodone-acetaminophen had been found at her benchKaczmarek also proceeded as if crack cocaine were Farak's sole drug. Farak received a sentence of 18 months in jail and 5 years of probation. Democratic Gov. Asked for comment, Foster in January objected through an attorney that the judge never gave her an opportunity to defend herself and that his ruling left an "indelible stain on her reputation.". Thank you! On the surface, their crimes dont seem as injurious and they dont seem to enjoy inflicting pain on others. She had unrestricted access to the evidence room. Rollins said it covers "a period of time in which either now disgraced chemist Annie Dookhan, or another convicted chemist Sonja Farak ," worked there. 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 chemist, Sonja Farak, worked at the state drug lab in Amherst, Massachusetts, for more than eight years. 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. But whether anyone investigated her conduct during a brief stint working at the state's Boston drug lab is at . 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." Farak wasn't the first Massachusetts chemist to tamper with drug evidence. Regarding the cases that she had handled, the Massachusetts courts threw out every case in the Amherst lab during her tenure. 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 was trying to suppress mental health issues, depression in specific, and she attempted to kill herself in high school, according to Rolling Stone. Sonja Farak in How to Fix a Drug Scandal. But why were a small handful of prosecutors allowed total control over evidence about one of the worst criminal justice failures in recent memory? Compromised drug samples often fit the definition. 3.3.2023 5:45 PM, Jacob Sullum As How to Fix a Drug Scandal explores, Farak had long struggled with her mental . Instead, she submitted an intentionally vague letter to the judge claiming defense attorneys already had everything. You can check your records electronically by following this link: https://icori.chs.state.ma.us. Over time, Farak's drug use turned to cocaine, LSD and, eventually, crack. And both pose the obvious question about how chemists could behave so badly for years without detection. Listen Live: Classic and Contemporary Celtic, Listen Live: Cape, Coast and Islands NPR Station, Boston nonprofit Street2Ivy is producing this generation's entrepreneurs. another filing. Even the master's degree on her rsum was fabricated. In worksheet notes dated Thursday, Dec. 22, Farak During the next four years, she would periodically sober up and then relapse. She was sentenced in 2014 to 18 months in prison and 5 years of probation. "I was totally controlled by my addiction," Farak later testified. According to the Daily Hampshire Gazette, Farak graduated with awards and distinctions. compelled release of additional drug treatment records, which indicated Farak used a variety of drugs that she stole from the lab for years. As Solotaroff recounts in detail, Massachusetts attorney Luke Ryan represented two people who were accused of drug charges that Farak had analyzed . They tend to be more freeform notes about the session and your impressions of the client's statements and demeanour. He also Inwardly though, Sonja Farak was striving. 1. 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. A few months before her arrest, Farak's counselor recommended in-patient rehab. Patrick said "the most important take-home" was that "no individual's due process rights were compromised.". 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. "No reasonable individual could have failed to appreciate the unlawfulness of [Kaczmarek's] actions in these circumstances," Robertson wrote in her ruling. While Dookhan had tampered with evidence and indulged in dry-labbing, Farak stole from her workplace. During her trial, her defense lawyer Elaine Pourinski said that Farak wasnt taking drugs to party, but instead to control her depression. When a Therapy Session starts, the software automatically creates a To-Do list item reminding users to create the relevant documentation. On paper, these numbers made Dookhan the most productive chemist at Hinton; the next most productive averaged around 300 samples per month. As . Farak apparently still tested each caseunlike Annie Dookhan, another Massachusetts chemist who was arrested five months prior to Farak for fabricating test results. Months after Farak pleaded guilty in January 2014, Ryan filed a Like Hinton, the Amherst lab had no cameras. She played as the starting guard for Portsmouth High Schools freshman team. 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. "As the gatekeeper to this evidence, she failed to turn over documents, and she adamantly opposed the requests for access. Many more are likely to follow, with the total expected to exceed 50,000. 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. Farak had started taking drugs on the job within months of joining the Amherst lab in 2004. Since her release, she has kept a low profile and managed to stay out of the public . He was floored when he found the worksheets. 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. Martha Coakley, then attorney general for the state, argued in Melendez-Diaz that a chemist's certificate contains only "neutral, objective facts." Investigators either missed or declined opportunities to dig very deep. 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. Mucha gente que vio el programa se pregunta: dnde est Sonja Farak ahora? Among the papers they seized were handwritten worksheets Farak completed for drug-abuse therapy. The Farak documents indicate she used drugs on the very day she certified samples as heroin in Penates case. Among other items, Kaczmarek Obviously, after a blunder of such scale, no one would want their samples checked from the same lab. 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." Faraks wife had her own mental health problems, and according to Rolling Stone, Farak would have conflict with her wife every night at home. "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. In June 2011, Dookhan secretly took 90 samples out of an evidence locker and then forged a co-worker's initials to check them back in, a clear chain-of-custody breach. Her medical records included notes from Faraks therapist in Amherst, Anna Kogan. Though. 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. Netflix released a new docu-series called "How to Fix a Drug Scandal." "No reasonablejury could conclude that this evidence is not favorable.". Terms Of Use, (Annie Dookhan (left) and Sonja Farak, Associated Press). Fue arrestada el 19 de enero de 2013.