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 . 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. ", But another co-worker was suspicious, particularly since he "never saw Dookhan in front of a microscope.". TherapyNotes The court also dismissed all meth cases processed at the lab since Farak started in 2004. Local prosecutors also remained in the dark. Farak admitted to being on a list of drugs while working between 2004 and her 2013 arrest. Coakley assigned the case against Dookhan to Assistant Attorney General Anne Kaczmarek and her supervisor, John Verner. Most important, they found seven worksheets from Farak's substance abuse therapy. How To Write Therapy Progress Notes: 8 Templates & Examples - Quenza Applying Routine Activity Theory: A Case Study of the Sonya Farak Drug She was trying to suppress mental health issues, depression in specific, and she attempted to kill herself in high school, according to Rolling Stone. As . Where Is Sonja Farak Now? Two Massachusetts drug lab technicians Sonja Farak and Annie Dookhan were caught tainting evidence in separate drug labs in different but equally shocking ways. Cleverly omitting pronouns, she wrote that "after reviewing" the file, "every documenthas been disclosed." Foster, now general counsel at the Massachusetts Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission, and Kaczmarek, now a clerk magistrate in Suffolk Superior Court, declined to comment for this story. Her reporting focuses on mental health, criminal justice and education. 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. Or she just lied about her results altogether: In one of the more ludicrous cases, she testified under oath that a chunk of cashew was crack cocaine. Kaczmarek was now juggling two scandals on opposite sides of the state. On the surface, their crimes dont seem as injurious and they dont seem to enjoy inflicting pain on others. NORTHAMPTON Sonja J. Farak told a nurse at the Western Massachusetts Penate's suit said Kaczmarek withheld evidence that Farak used drugs at the lab for longer than the Massachusetts attorney general's office first claimed, and that he would not have been imprisoned based on tainted evidence. From 2004 to 2013, Farak took advantage of . Massachusetts prosecutors withheld evidence of corrupt state narcotics testing for months from a defendant facing drug charges, and didnt release it until after his conviction, according to newly surfaced documents and emails. "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. Who Are Sonja Farak and Annie Dookhan? How to Fix a Drug Scandal True Story 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. When the Farak scandal erupted, that misconduct came into view. She was sentenced in 2014 to 18 months in prison and 5 years of probation. Gainey added that Healey is pleased with their conclusion that prosecutors and the state police acted appropriately. There is nothing to indicate that the allegations against Farak date back to the time she tested the drugs in Penates case. 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. 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. "I was totally controlled by my addiction," Farak later testified. Introduction. Sonja Farak had admitted to stealing and using drugs from the drug lab where she worked as a chemist for around 9 years. Since the takeover, the budget for all forensic labs across the state has been increased, by around twenty-five per cent. 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. Exhausted from the ongoing scandal in Boston, state officials were desperate for damage control. She recovered, made it through college and got a job as a chemist at the Amherst Crime Lab, where she tested confiscated drugs. "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. Sonja Farak, a chemist with a longterm mental health struggle, is the catalyst of the story, but it doesn't end with her. TherapyNotes. State officials rushed to condemn her loudly and publicly. 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. Her ar-rest led to the dismissal of thousands of drug cases in Massachusetts. Accessibility | He emailed them to Kaczmareksubject: "FARAK Admissions." Kaczmarek quoted the worksheets in a memo to her supervisor, Verner, and others, summarizing that they revealed Farak's "struggle with substance abuse." The newest true crime series from Netflix, How to Fix a Drug Scandal, was released on April 1, 2020. High Mass. Lab Chemist Causes Over 24,000 Drug Charges To Be Dismissed Defense attorneys say withheld Farak notes implicate prosecutors - News 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. In the aftermath of Farak's arrest, it's been argued that because she was under the influence, all of the cases she tested could be considered to have been wrongfully convicted. She had never quashed a subpoena before, but supervisors told her to fend off motions about Farak. Damning evidence reveals drug lab chemist Sonja Farak's addictions. GBH News Center for Investigative Reporting. 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. With your support, GBH will continue to innovate, inspire and connect through reporting you value that meets todays moments. She started smoking crack cocaine in 2011 and was soon using it 10 to 12 times a day. The responsibility of the mess that she created should also rest upon the shoulders of her workplace that allowed her the opportunity to indulge so freely in drugs in the first place. 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. The surveillance of the chemists as well as the standards and the confiscated drugs has also been increased considerably. Due to the conviction, prosecutors were forced to dismiss more than . He was floored when he found the worksheets. It ultimately took a blatant violation to expose Dookhan, and even then her bosses twisted themselves in knots to hold on to their "super woman.". Approximately one year later, she pled guilty to tampering with evidence, unlawful possession, and stealing narcotics. It declined Farak's offer of a detailed confession in exchange for leniency, nixing the offer without even negotiating terms. As extensively detailed in How to Fix a Drug Scandal, Farak was arrested on January 19, 2013. Two weeks after Ryans discovery, the Attorney Generals Office 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. Netflixs How to Fix a Drug Scandal tells the story of two women whose actions brought to light the negligence of the system that is supposed to deliver justice to everyone. Massachusetts crime lab scandal worsens: Dookhan and Farak. 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. Sonja Farak is in the grip of a rubbed-raw depression that hasn't responded to medication. 3.4.2023 8:00 AM, Reason Staff Listen Live: Classic and Contemporary Celtic, Listen Live: Cape, Coast and Islands NPR Station, Boston nonprofit Street2Ivy is producing this generation's entrepreneurs. The staff in the new lab was also doubled, and the number of trainees was also increased. A hearing on their motions is scheduled next month. 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. In 2019, the chemist was spotted at federal court in Springfield, MA , attending a civil case. Here's Where Sonja Farak Is Now, After 'How to Fix a Drug Scandal' It was an astoundingly light touch for the second state chemist arrested in six months. Penate argued the court should follow those findings. 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. In 2009, Farak branched out to the lab's amphetamine, phentermine, and cocaine standards. But unlike with Dookhan, no one launched a bigger investigation of Farak. 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. | She was ar-rested for tampering with evidence while abusing narcotics at work. Patrick appointed the state inspector general to look into it. The judge ordered prosecutors and defense attorneys to coordinate on identifying undisclosed emails related to documents seized from the disgraced state crime lab chemist. "he didn't request a warrant. In Sonja Farak drug lab scandal, Mass - The Washington Post Sgt. The number is 888-999-2881. "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. 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.". "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. Thus, only defendants whose evidence she tested in the six-month window before her arrest could challenge their cases. A federal judge has rejected claims from an embattled former state prosecutor that she is protected from liability in the fallout over a Massachusetts drug lab scandal. 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.". 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. Foster's first stepper ethical obligations and office protocolshould have been to look through the evidence to see what had already been handed over. 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." Sonja Farak: Prosecutors kept drug abuse evidence secret so - MEAWW 1. 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. 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." Talking Politics: Should a new government agency protect the coastline from climate change? "Whether law enforcement officials overlooked these papers or intentionally suppressed them is a question for another day.". 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. In worksheet notes dated Thursday, Dec. 22, Farak Investigators gave that information to Kaczmarek and the state AG's office,according tohearings before thestate board that disciplines attorneys. 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. 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. Discipline recommended for former assistant attorneys - Masslive How to Fix a Drug Scandal: With Shannon O'Neill, Karl Kenzler, Paul Solotaroff, Scott Allen. Grand Jury Transcript - Sonja Farak - September 16, 2015 Join us. Prosecutors have an obligation to give the defense exculpatory evidence including anything that could weaken evidence against defendants. 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. A Compelling New Take on a Massachusetts Lab Scandal Tainting Thousands Sonja Farak was a chemist at a state drug lab in Amherst, Massachusetts, from 2005 to 2013. YouTube According to a Rolling Stone piece on Farak, she struggled with depression from an early age, one that hasnt responded to medication. They wrote that Farak attempted suicide in high school and was also hospitalized while in college. Sonja Farak in How to Fix a Drug Scandal. ", Officials rushed to downplay the situation in Amherst. Kaczmarek has repeatedly testified she did not act intentionally and that she thought the worksheets had been turned over to the district attorneys who prosecuted the cases involved. It didnt matter whether or not she was the one who did the testing or some other chemist. State prosecutors gave Farak the immunity they had declined to grant two years earlier, then asked when she started analyzing samples while high. She's no longer in prison, as Farak has served her sentence. The Attorney Generals Office, Velis and Merrigan and the state police declined to answer questions about the handling of the Farak evidence. Stream GBH's Award-Winning Content For Parents And Children. 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. answered that the state considered the evidence irrelevant to any case other than Faraks.. compelled release of additional drug treatment records, which indicated Farak used a variety of drugs that she stole from the lab for years. Out of "an abundance of caution," Kaczmarek didn't present them to the grand jury that was convened to determine whether to indict Farak. Though. That motion was denied, and the notice letters will explain Farak's tampering without any mention of prosecutorial misconduct. 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. The chemist, Sonja Farak, worked at the state drug lab in Amherst, Massachusetts, for more than eight years. shipped nearly 300 pages of previously undisclosed materials to local prosecutors around the state. The story of the intertwining Farak and Penate evidence began in January 2013, when state police arrested Farak and searched her car. Regarding the cases that she had handled, the Massachusetts courts threw out every case in the Amherst lab during her tenure. Who Is Luke Ryan From Netflix's 'How To Fix A Drug Scandal'? | True At some point, the attorney general's office stopped chasing leads entirely. On paper, these numbers made Dookhan the most productive chemist at Hinton; the next most productive averaged around 300 samples per month. Netflix's How to Fix a Drug Scandal: What Happened To Sonja Farak Kaczmarek, along with former assistant attorneys general Kris Foster and John Verner, all face possible sanctions. Watch How to Fix a Drug Scandal | Netflix Official Site 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. 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. From the April 2023 issue, Billy Binion "Thousands of defendants were kept in the dark for far too long about the government misconduct in their cases," the ACLU and the Committee for Public Counsel Services, the state's public defense agency, wrote in a motion. Magistrate Judge Robertson denied a request in Penate's lawsuit that Kaczmarek be prohibited from contesting the special hearing officer's findings. 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. Because of all that, it's no surprise that Farak was sent to prison in Massachusetts. 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. . Massachusetts DA seeks to vacate thousands of drug convictions - CNN Widening scandal at state drug lab in Mass. exposes opportunities for 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. ", In 2004, her first full year at the lab, Dookhan reported analyzing approximately 700 samples per month. Name. On top of that, it was also ensured that no analyst would ever work without supervision. 2. Ryan then filed a How to write better therapy progress notes: 10 examples (Netflix) A former state chemist, Sonja Farak, made headlines in 2013 when she was arrested for stealing and using drugs from a laboratory. Coakley's office finally launched a criminal investigation in July 2012, more than a year after the infraction was discovered by Dookhan's supervisors. Sonja Farak Cracked Out - Rough Diplomacy 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." Fue arrestada el 19 de enero de 2013.
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