They never searched Farak's computer or her home. Out of "an abundance of caution," Kaczmarek didn't present them to the grand jury that was convened to determine whether to indict Farak. This past Tuesday, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court filed a report saying that more than 24,000 convictions in 16,449 cases have been dismissed as a result of foul play by a former state drug lab chemist. After graduating from Portsmouth High School, Farak attended the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where she got a bachelor of science degree in biochemistry in 2000. | "If she were suffering from back injurymaybe she took some oxys?" If chemists had to testify in person, Coakley warned melodramatically, misdemeanor drug prosecutions "would essentially grind to a halt. In Farak's car, police found a "works kit"crack cocaine, a spatula, and copper mesh, often used as a pipe filter. She was struggling to suppress mental health issues, depression in particular, and she tried to kill herself in high school, according to Rolling Stone. According to the Daily Hampshire Gazette, Farak graduated with awards and distinctions. Because state prosecutors hid Farak's substance abuse diaries, it took far too long for the full timeline of her crimes to become public. The lax security and regulations of the place and the negligent supervision of the employees and the stock of standards are the reasons why Farak was encouraged to do what she did. In a letter filed with the Supreme Court, Julianne Nassif, a lab supervisor, wrote that Hinton had "appropriate quality control" measures. The Amherst Bulletin reported that her medical records indicated that she only became addicted to drugs once she started working at the lab, in 2004. The state and attorneys for some of the defendants agreed to a $14 million settlement to reimburse 31,000 defendants for post conviction-related costs, such as probation and parole fees, drug analysis and GPS monitoring. 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.". May 2003 started working in Hinton drug lab p. 14. Sonja Farak worked as a chemist for the state of Massachusetts, specializing in identifying illegal substances. Ryan finally viewed the file in the attorney generals offices in October 2014. And so, when she pleaded guilty in January 2014, Farak got what one attorney called "de facto immunity." But why were a small handful of prosecutors allowed total control over evidence about one of the worst criminal justice failures in recent memory? Join half a million readers enjoying Newsweek's free newsletters, Sonja Farak is the subject of Netflix's "How To Fix a Drug Scandal. Fue arrestada el 19 de enero de 2013. Approximately one year later, she pled guilty to tampering with evidence, unlawful possession, and stealing narcotics. 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 . February 2013 email, to which he attached the worksheets. It declined Farak's offer of a detailed confession in exchange for leniency, nixing the offer without even negotiating terms. From 2004 to 2013, Farak took advantage of . Yet Dookhan's brazen crimes went undetected for ages. Both have since left the attorney general's office for other government positions. Because the attorney general had "portrayed Farak as a dedicated public servant who was apprehended immediately after crossing the line, there was also no reasonto waste resources engaging in any additional introspection.". "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. We couldn't do it without you. Its unclear if Farak is still with Lee, as they have both remained out of the public eye since the case. 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. After serving for 13 months, she was released on parole in 2015. A status hearing on Penate's suit, which was filed in 2017, is scheduled for July. In 2019, she was seen leaving the Springfield Federal Court but declined to comment on the status of the case. The twin Massachusetts drug lab scandals are unprecedented in the sheer number of cases thrown out because of forensic misconduct. Even the master's degree on her rsum was fabricated. Instead, Kaczmarek proceeded as if the substance abuse was a recent development. Listen Live: Classic and Contemporary Celtic, Listen Live: Cape, Coast and Islands NPR Station, Boston nonprofit Street2Ivy is producing this generation's entrepreneurs. Powered by WordPress.com VIP. 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. 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. noted the mental health worksheets found in Faraks car, which had not been released. Farak worked for the Amherst Drug Lab in Massachusetts for 9 years when she was convicted of stealing and using them. 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. At this point, Farakunlike Dookhandidn't admit anything. And both pose the obvious question about how chemists could behave so badly for years without detection. State prosecutors hadnt provided this evidence to other district attorneys offices contending with the Farak fallout, either. 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. 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. Sonja Farak pleaded guilty to stealing samples of drugs from an Amherst drug lab. As extensively detailed in How to Fix a Drug Scandal, Farak was arrested on January 19, 2013. 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. The Dookhan prosecution was barely underway, a grand jury having returned indictments a few weeks earlier. He was floored when he found the worksheets. Shawn Musgrave is a reporter who was until recently based in Boston. 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. The former judges and the state police officers who helped them conducted a thorough review, said Emalie Gainey, spokeswoman for Attorney General Maura Healey. Because of all that, it's no surprise that Farak was sent to prison in Massachusetts. Thus, only defendants whose evidence she tested in the six-month window before her arrest could challenge their cases. 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. Inwardly though, Sonja Farak was striving. Most important, they found seven worksheets from Farak's substance abuse therapy. The fact that she ran analyses while high and regularly dipped into samples casts doubt on thousands of convictions. The justices ordered Healey's department to cover all costs of notifying all defendants whose cases were dismissed. Foster and another assistant attorney general assented to that motion. 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. Her role was to test for the presence of illegal substances, which could be instrumental in thousands of . 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. Farak admitted in testimony that she began using drugs almost as soon as she started working at the Massachusetts State Crime Lab in Amherst. He emailed them to Kaczmareksubject: "FARAK Admissions." memo, Kaczmarek told her supervisors that "Farak's admissions on her 'emotional worksheets' recovered from her car detail her struggle with substance abuse. She married Lee after starting her job, but their marriage was rocky. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); NEXT: Zoning Makes the Green New Deal Impossible. 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. 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. I felt euphoric, Kogan wrote of Farak. 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.". Coakley assigned the case against Dookhan to Assistant Attorney General Anne Kaczmarek and her supervisor, John Verner. "It would be difficult to overstate the significance of these documents, Ryan This not only led to people getting a reprieve from prison but also filing their own lawsuits against the injustice they had to suffer. Patrick said "the most important take-home" was that "no individual's due process rights were compromised.". Farak apparently still tested each caseunlike Annie Dookhan, another Massachusetts chemist who was arrested five months prior to Farak for fabricating test results. She was released in 2015, as reported by Mass Live. Inwardly though, Sonja was struggling. 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.". It was an astoundingly light touch for the second state chemist arrested in six months. El 6 de enero de 2014, Farak se declar culpable de los cargos en su contra. Former chemist Annie Dookhan was convicted in 2013 on charges of improperly testing drug evidence at a drug lab in Boston. Grand Jury Transcript - Sonja Farak - September 16, 2015 Contributed by Shawn Musgrave (Musgrave Investigations) p. 1. TherapyNotes is a complete practice management system with everything you need to manage patient records, schedule appointments, meet with patients remotely, create rich documentation, and bill insurance, right at your fingertips. Accessibility | Farak saw Kogan in 2009 and 2010, and her therapist wrote: She obtains the drugs from her job at the state drug lab, by taking portions of samples that have come in to be tested., Kogan also wrote that Farak told her she had taken methamphetamines at another lab in an old job, but she didnt get much from it. Kogan wrote that after moving to western [Massachusetts] for her job at the state drug lab, [Farak] tried it again and really liked it. Farak. Her answer: more than eight years before her arrest. This threw every sample she had ever tested into question. Farak wasn't the first Massachusetts chemist to tamper with drug evidence. She was trying to suppress mental health issues, depression in specific, and she attempted to kill herself in high school, according to Rolling Stone. Among the papers they seized were handwritten worksheets Farak completed for drug-abuse therapy. Farak had started taking drugs on the job within months of joining the Amherst lab in 2004. It's Boston local news in one concise, fun and informative email. 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.". Due to the conviction, prosecutors were forced to dismiss more than . Perhaps, as criminal justice scandals inevitably emerge, we need to get more independent eyes on the evidence from the start. Farak as a young. Sonja Farak is in the grip of a rubbed-raw depression that hasn't responded to medication. Farak admitted to being on a list of drugs while working between 2004 and her 2013 arrest. 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." 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. Gainey added that Healey is pleased with their conclusion that prosecutors and the state police acted appropriately. After serving just a year of her 18 month sentence, Farak was released from prison in 2015. 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. 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. Soon after, the state police took over the control, and the lab was moved to Springfield, where it remains under the supervision of the state police. Before her sentencing, Farak failed a drug test while out on bail, according to Mass Live. Shortly into her role at Amherst, Farak decided to try liquid methamphetamine to ease her personal struggles. (Conveniently, they also found a Patriots schedule from 2011 in the car.). 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. It had no surveillance cameras, laughable security on evidence safes, and "laissez faire" management, which the state inspector general determined was the "most glaring factor that led to the Dookhan crisis. Sonja Farak. Chemist Sonja Farak pleaded guilty to "tampering with evidence" back in 2014 and was sentenced to 18 months in prison. But unlike with Dookhan, there were no independent investigations of Farak or the Amherst lab. Nassif considered it a lapse in judgment, but not a disqualifying one; Nassif's boss didn't think it necessary to alert the prosecutors whose cases relied on the samples, much less the defendants. "No reasonablejury could conclude that this evidence is not favorable.". 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. 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. As federal food benefits decline, Mass. "Because on almost a daily basis Farak abused narcoticsthere is no assurance that she was able to perform chemical analysis correctly," the judge found. She even made her own crack in the lab. wrote to the Attorney Generals Office two days later. The Hinton drug lab, operated by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, appears to have been run largely on the honor system. The place was closed as soon as Faraks crimes came to light. wrote she "tried to resist using @ work, but ended up failing." Grand Jury Transcript - Sonja Farak - September 16, 2015. After weeks of hearings, a "special hearing officer" selected by the board recommended potential sanctions against them all. She was ar-rested for tampering with evidence while abusing narcotics at work. Farak is amongst one of the 18 defendants battling the lawsuit filed by Rolando Penate. She tried to kill herself in high school, according to Rolling Stone. She couldn't be sure which cases these were, Dookhan told investigators. 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. Powered by. Prosecutors have an obligation to give the defense exculpatory evidence including anything that could weaken evidence against defendants. Process Notes/Psychotherapy Notes Process notes are sometimes also referred to as psychotherapy notesthey're the notes you take during or after a session. When grand jury materials were eventually released to defense attorneys, then, they did not mention that these documents existed. The chemist, Sonja Farak, worked at the Amherst crime . Farak started at Amherst lab in Aug 2004 p. 32. Joseph Ballou, lead investigator for the state police, called them the most important documents from the car. shipped nearly 300 pages of previously undisclosed materials to local prosecutors around the state. Like Hinton, the Amherst lab had no cameras. Netflixs How to Fix a Drug Scandal Story: 5 Fast Facts. Coakley's office finally launched a criminal investigation in July 2012, more than a year after the infraction was discovered by Dookhan's supervisors. It's not as bad as Dookhan, they asserted and implied over and over. 3.3.2023 5:45 PM, Jacob Sullum Talking Politics: Should a new government agency protect the coastline from climate change? YouTube 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. Where is Sonja now? Though. But unlike with Dookhan, no one launched a bigger investigation of Farak. Follow us so you don't miss a thing! Farak had started taking drugs on the job within months of joining the lab. State officials rushed to condemn her loudly and publicly. 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. 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 2019, the chemist was spotted at federal court in Springfield, MA , attending a civil case. A local prosecutor also asked Ballou to look into a case Farak had tested as far back as 2005. 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. When the Farak scandal erupted, that misconduct came into view. Release year: 2020. (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. Foster replied that because the investigation against Farak was ongoing, she couldnt let him see it. . Penate is seeking a new trial, contending the conviction should be reversed because of prosecutorial misconduct and evidence tainted by Farak. Since then, she has kept a low profile. She played as the starting guard for Portsmouth High Schools freshman team. Farak was getting high off the confiscated drugs police sent her way before replacing the evidence with fake drugs. Why did she do that and where has it left her? Dookhan had seeded public mistrust in the criminal justice system, which "now becomes an issue in every criminal trial for every defendant.". The lone dissenting justice called the decision "too little and too late" and argued that the severity of the scandal required tossing all the cases. Regarding the cases that she had handled, the Massachusetts courts threw out every case in the Amherst lab during her tenure. And when the tests she did run came back negative, Dookhan added controlled substances to the vials. "As the gatekeeper to this evidence, she failed to turn over documents, and she adamantly opposed the requests for access. 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. 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. 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. A Powerful EHR to Manage a Thriving Practice. How to Fix a Drug Scandal is an American true crime documentary miniseries that was released on Netflix on April 1, 2020. Two Massachusetts drug lab technicians Sonja Farak and Annie Dookhan were caught tainting evidence in separate drug labs in different but equally shocking ways. Disgraced drug lab chemist Sonja Farak emerges as her own attorney as defendant in $5.7 million federal lawsuit. ", But another co-worker was suspicious, particularly since he "never saw Dookhan in front of a microscope.". Among the papers they seized were handwritten worksheets Farak completed for drug-abuse therapy. Even before her arrest, the Department of Public Health had launched an internal inquiry into how such misconduct had gone undetected for such a long time. Kaczmarek, along with former assistant attorneys general Kris Foster and John Verner, all face possible sanctions.