"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. The story of the intertwining Farak and Penate evidence began in January 2013, when state police arrested Farak and searched her car. 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.". Would love your thoughts, please comment. Fortunately, the courts largely ignored this shallow investigation. Stream GBH's Award-Winning Content For Parents And Children. In an August 2013 email, Ryan asked Assistant Attorney General Kris Foster to review evidence taken from Farak. Still, the state was acquiring evidence. But absent evidence of aggravating misconduct by prosecutors or cops, the majority ruled, Dookhan's tampering alone didn't justify a blanket dismissal of every case she had touched. 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. She received the American Institute of Chemists Award in her final year as well as a Crimson and Gray Award from the school a year before, which recognized her dedication, commitment and unselfishness in the enrichment of student life at WPI. A Rolling Stone piece on Farak also indicated that she graduated with high distinction from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute. When Farak was arrested,former Attorney General Martha Coakley told the public investigators believed Farak tampered with drugs at the lab for only a few months. "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." When grand jury materials were eventually released to defense attorneys, then, they did not mention that these documents existed. Fue arrestada el 19 de enero de 2013. 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. You have been subscribed to WBUR Today. 2. 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. Foster said that Kaczmarek told her all relevant evidence had been turned over and that her supervisor told her to write the letter, though both denied these claims. After she was caught, Farak pleaded guilty to stealing drugs from the lab and was sentenced to prison time of 18 months. 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.". The new numbers appear in a report issued by a court-designated "Special Master." From the April 2023 issue, Billy Binion Instead, Kaczmarek proceeded as if the substance abuse was a recent development. 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. Patrick appointed the state inspector general to look into it. The Farak scandal came as the state grappled with another drug lab crisis. Who is Sonja Farak, the former state drug lab chemist featured in the show? 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. 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. YouTube 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. Coakley's office finally launched a criminal investigation in July 2012, more than a year after the infraction was discovered by Dookhan's supervisors. A local prosecutor also asked Ballou to look into a case Farak had tested as far back as 2005. 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. 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. (Netflix) A former state chemist, Sonja Farak, made headlines in 2013 when she was arrested for stealing and using drugs from a laboratory. 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. Farak was released from prison in 2015 and has kept a low profile since. The Farak documents indicate she used drugs on the very day she certified samples as heroin in Penates case. Defense lawyers doubled down on challenges to every case she might have taintednot just her own, which district attorneys ultimately agreed to dismiss, but also her co-workers', based on Farak's admission that she stole from other chemists' samples. While Dookhan had tampered with evidence and indulged in dry-labbing, Farak stole from her workplace. She was released in 2015, as reported by Mass Live. The attorney general's officeKaczmarek or her supervisorscould have asked a judge to determine whether the worksheets were actually privileged, as Kaczmarek later acknowledged. The twin Massachusetts drug lab scandals are unprecedented in the sheer number of cases thrown out because of forensic misconduct. What Did Sonja Farak Do, Exactly? She said, It was about coping; it certainly wasnt about having fun; I dont think shes had fun in quite a while.. 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 four 50-minute episodes, Netflix's latest shocker tells the story of Sonia Farak, a chemist who worked at a crime lab in Amherst, Massachusetts. Investigators either missed or declined opportunities to dig very deep. Tens of thousands of criminal drug cases were dismissed as a result of misconduct by Dookhan and Farak. The number is 888-999-2881. One colleague called her the "super woman of the lab. This immediately provoked questions about the thousands of cases in which her findings had contributed to the imprisonment of an individual. 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. They never searched Farak's computer or her home. This very well could have been the end of the investigative trail but for a few stubborn defense lawyers, who appealed the ruling. But Ryan, who represented Penate, suspected it was more extensive. The charges against Penate were dismissed after Farak's conviction. As a teenager, she had attempted suicide. 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. Sonja Farak worked as a chemist for the state of Massachusetts, specializing in identifying illegal substances. This is the story of Farak's drug-induced wrongdoings, and it's the. "No reasonablejury could conclude that this evidence is not favorable.". In her June 17 ruling, U.S. Magistrate Judge Katherine Robertson dismissed former Assistant Attorney General Anne Kaczmarek's claims of qualified immunity a doctrine that gives legal immunity to some public officials accused of misconduct. Sgt. Among the papers they seized were handwritten worksheets Farak completed for drug-abuse therapy. As he leafed through three boxes of evidence, he found the substance abuse worksheets and diaries. 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 . "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. A Powerful EHR to Manage a Thriving Practice. A judge sentenced Dookhan to three years in prison; she was granted parole in April 2016. After high school, Sonja went on to major in biochemistry at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in western Massachusetts. 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. Name. But whether anyone investigated her conduct during a brief stint working at the state's Boston drug lab is at . 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. Local prosecutors also remained in the dark. And so, when she pleaded guilty in January 2014, Farak got what one attorney called "de facto immunity." His report deemed Dookhan the "sole bad actor" at the lab, a finding that remains disputed in some circles. | "Whether law enforcement officials overlooked these papers or intentionally suppressed them is a question for another day.". El 6 de enero de 2014, Farak se declar culpable de los cargos en su contra. Farak worked under the influence of drugs for nine years - from 2004 to 2013 - before she was caught. Approximately one year later, she pled guilty to tampering with evidence, unlawful possession, and stealing narcotics. Dookhan was sentenced to prison in 2013. 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. Soon after Dookhan's arrest, Coakley's office asked the governor to order a broader independent probe of the Hinton lab. answered that the state considered the evidence irrelevant to any case other than Faraks.. 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. At the time of Penates trial, the state Attorney Generals Office contended Faraks misdeeds dated back only as far as 2012. 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. 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. And when the tests she did run came back negative, Dookhan added controlled substances to the vials. In 2014, former Amherst drug lab chemist Sonja Farak was convicted and sentenced to 18 months in prison after it was discovered that she stole and used drugs that she was entrusted to test. GBH News Center for Investigative Reporting. 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. Martha Coakley, then attorney general for the state, argued in Melendez-Diaz that a chemist's certificate contains only "neutral, objective facts." If Farak found a substance was a true drug, the person it was confiscated from could be convicted of a substance-related crime. One thing that How to Fix a Drug Scandal makes clear is that it wasnt all Sonja Faraks fault. Her job consisted of testing drugs that have. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); NEXT: Zoning Makes the Green New Deal Impossible. Poetically, that landmark case originated from the Hinton lab, although Dookhan didn't conduct the analysis in question. It's not as bad as Dookhan, they asserted and implied over and over. Kaczmarek argued for qualified immunity after she was sued by Rolando Penate, who spent five years in prison on drug charges in which the evidence in his case was tested by Farak. As . Most important, they found seven worksheets from Farak's substance abuse therapy. When defense lawyers asked to see evidence for themselves, state prosecutors smeared them as pursuing a "fishing expedition.". After the Supreme Court's decision, a skeptical colleague started tracking how many microscope slides Dookhan used to test samples for cocaine. 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. Officials recognized the worksheets for what they were: near-indisputable confessions. You can check your records electronically by following this link: https://icori.chs.state.ma.us. Her medical records included notes from Faraks therapist in Amherst, Anna Kogan. Farak admitted to being on a list of drugs while working between 2004 and her 2013 arrest. Several defense attorneys who called for the Velis-Merrigan investigation say the former judges and their state police investigators got it wrong. The criminal prosecution wasn't the only investigation of the Dookhan scandal. Where is Sonja now? Grand Jury Transcript - Sonja Farak - September 16, 2015 Contributed by Shawn Musgrave (Musgrave Investigations) p. 1. 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." A drug chemist . 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. Farak struggled with mental health throughout her life, the documentary series explains. 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. 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. | 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. In 2019, she was seen leaving the Springfield Federal Court but declined to comment on the status of the case. This is the story of Farak's drug-induced wrongdoings, and it's the story of the Massachusetts Attorney General's office apparently turning a blind eye on those wrongfully convicted because of Farak's mistakes. The governor didn't appoint the inspector general or anyone else to determine how long Farak was altering samples or running analyses while high. "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. 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. Even the master's degree on her rsum was fabricated. . After Faraks arrest in 2013, police found pages of mental health worksheets in her car indicating she'd struggled with drug addiction since at least 2011. 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. Introduction. After high school, Sonja went on to major in biochemistry at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in western Massachusetts. 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 . State prosecutors hadnt provided this evidence to other district attorneys offices contending with the Farak fallout, either. Where Is Sonja Farak Now? In fall 2013, a Springfield, Massachusetts, judge convened hearings with the explicit aim of establishing "the timing and scope" of Farak's "alleged criminal conduct.". The hotline is open Monday through Friday, from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. In the only quasi-independent probe of the Farak scandal ever ordered, Attorney General Healey and a district attorney appointed two retired judges to investigate in summer 2015. His email was one of more than 800 released with the Velis-Merrigan report. Kaczmarek, along with former assistant attorneys general Kris Foster and John Verner, all face possible sanctions. 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. In December 2011, after police in Springfield, Mass., had arrested Renaldo Penate for allegedly selling heroin, the drugs from that case were tested at a state drug lab by technician Sonja Farak. The attorney general's representative at these hearings was Assistant Attorney General Kris Foster, a recent hire. In June 2017, following hearings in which Kaczmarek, Foster, Verner, and others took the stand, a judge found that Kaczmarek and Foster together "piled misrepresentation upon misrepresentation to shield the mental health worksheets from disclosure.". On the surface, their crimes dont seem as injurious and they dont seem to enjoy inflicting pain on others. 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? The disgraced chemist was sentenced to less than two years behind bars in 2014, following her guilty pleas for stealing cocaine from the lab. It declined Farak's offer of a detailed confession in exchange for leniency, nixing the offer without even negotiating terms. Episode 1. chemist, Sonja Farak, had been battling drug addiction and had tampered with samples she was assigned to test around the time she tested the samples in Penate's case. Sonja Farak was a chemist for a state crime lab in Massachusetts. | TherapyNotes. Join half a million readers enjoying Newsweek's free newsletters, Sonja Farak is the subject of Netflix's "How To Fix a Drug Scandal. Sonja Farak pleaded guilty to stealing samples of drugs from an Amherst drug lab. "I dont know how the Velis report reached the conclusion it did after reviewing the underlying email documents, said Randy Gioia, deputy chief counsel at the Committee for Public Counsel Services, the states public defender office. The medical records stated that she did not have an existing drug problem that was amplified by her access to more substances. Follow us so you don't miss a thing! If they'd kept digging, defendants might still have learned the crucial facts. 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. Coakley assigned the case against Dookhan to Assistant Attorney General Anne Kaczmarek and her supervisor, John Verner. One of the reasons for the decrepit state and standard of the Amherst lab was the lack of funds. | Dookhan had seeded public mistrust in the criminal justice system, which "now becomes an issue in every criminal trial for every defendant.". In November 2013, Dookhan pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice, tampering with evidence, and perjury. The cocaine, found in an unsealed, completed drug-testing kit, tested negativemeaning Farak had seemingly replaced the formerly "positive" drugs with falsified substances. Over the next four years, Farak consumed nearly all of it. Kaczmarek is one of three former prosecutors whose role in the prosecution of Farak later became the focus of several lawsuits and disciplinary hearings. compelled release of additional drug treatment records, which indicated Farak used a variety of drugs that she stole from the lab for years. Given the account that Farak was a law-abiding citizen, it is questioned as to how an Exhausted from the ongoing scandal in Boston, state officials were desperate for damage control. another filing. Netflix released a new docu-series called "How to Fix a Drug Scandal." 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. 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. Because of all that, it's no surprise that Farak was sent to prison in Massachusetts. In court, she added that there was "no smoking gun" in the evidence. Release year: 2020. Kaczmarek was now juggling two scandals on opposite sides of the state. Read More: Where is Sonja Farak Sister Now? Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility at GBH, Transparency in Coverage Cost-Sharing Disclosures. Since her release, she has kept a low profile and managed to stay out of the public . Like Hinton, the Amherst lab had no cameras. Having barely investigated her, prosecutors indicted Farak only for the samples in her possession the day she was caught. Sonja Farak is in the grip of a rubbed-raw depression that hasn't responded to medication. 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. Penate is seeking a new trial, contending the conviction should be reversed because of prosecutorial misconduct and evidence tainted by Farak. The lead prosecutor on Farak's case knew about the diaries, as did supervisors at the state attorney general's office. noted the mental health worksheets found in Faraks car, which had not been released. (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. She was also under the influence when she took the stand during her trial. As the state's top court put it, the criminal investigation into Farak was "cursory at best.". 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. As Kaczmarek herself later observed, Farak essentially had "a drugstore at her disposal" from her first day at the Amherst lab. 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. She started working shortly after for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health in July 2003 until July 2012, and from July 2012 until January 2013 for the Massachusetts State Police when the lab fell under their jurisdiction. From 2004 to 2013, Farak took advantage of . 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. 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 was arrested in 2013 when the supervisor at the Amherst lab was made aware that two samples were missing. This is merely a fishing expedition, Foster wrote in Dookhan was now spending less time at her lab bench and more time testifying in court about her results. Her wrongdoings were exposed when unsealed cocaine and a crack pipe were found under her desk. Because state prosecutors hid Farak's substance abuse diaries, it took far too long for the full timeline of her crimes to become public. In a separate opinion in October 2018, the Supreme Judicial Court also ordered the state to return most court fines and probation fees to people whose cases were dismissed; one estimate puts that price tag at $10 million. According to the Daily Hampshire Gazette, Farak graduated with awards and distinctions. Farak signed It was. The civil lawsuit was one of the last tied to prosecutors' disputed handling of the case against disgraced ex-chemist Sonja Farak, who was convicted in 2014 of ingesting drug samples she was. In January of 2013, Sonja Farak, a chemist at a state crime lab in Massachusetts, was arrested for tampering with evidence related to criminal drug cases (Small, 2020).A year later, Farak pleaded guilty to tampering with drug evidence, theft of a controlled substance, and drug possession .She received a sentence of 18 months with 5 years of probation and was released in 2015. "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.". "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.". 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. Emma Camp Below is an outline of her charges. 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. Between the two women, 47,000 drug convictions and guilty pleas have been dismissed in the last two years, many for misdemeanor possession. Judge Kinder ordered her to produce all potentially privileged documents for his review to determine whether they could be disclosed. email highlighted in the Velis-Merrigan report. concluded she was usually high while working in the lab for more than eight years before her arrest in January 2013 and started stealing samples seven years ago. "It was almost like Dookhan wanted to get caught," one of her former co-workers told state police in 2012. When a Therapy Session starts, the software automatically creates a To-Do list item reminding users to create the relevant documentation. In 2012, she began taking from co-workers' samples, forging intake forms and editing the lab database to cover her tracks. "It would be difficult to overstate the significance of these documents," Ryan wrote to the attorney general's office. denied Penates motion to dismiss the case, saying there was no evidence that Faraks misconduct extended to his case. 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. 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. motion on behalf of another client to see the evidence. The drug lab technician was sent to prison for 18 months, but was released in 2015. Why did she do that and where has it left her? But she insisted the drugs didn't compromise her worka belief that one judge would aptly declare "belies logic.".

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