Former chemist Annie Dookhan was convicted in 2013 on charges of improperly testing drug evidence at a drug lab in Boston. The place was closed as soon as Faraks crimes came to light. Between the two women, 47,000 drug convictions and guilty pleas have been dismissed in the last two years, many for misdemeanor possession. How to Fix A Drug Scandal takes a one-woman issue in a crumbling police drug lab and follows the way it blew up an entire legal system. 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. Her role was to test for the presence of illegal substances, which could be instrumental in thousands of . Months after Farak pleaded guilty in January 2014, Ryan filed a
noted the mental health worksheets found in Faraks car, which had not been released. In worksheet notes dated Thursday, Dec. 22, 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. Farak struggled with mental health throughout her life, the documentary series explains. 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. 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 . 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 a letter filed with the Supreme Court, Julianne Nassif, a lab supervisor, wrote that Hinton had "appropriate quality control" measures. We were unable to subscribe you to WBUR Today. 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.". It didnt matter whether or not she was the one who did the testing or some other chemist. This article originally appeared in print under the headline "The Chemists and the Cover-Up". Joseph . 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. Dookhan's transgressions got more press attention: Her story broke first, she immediately confessed, and her misdeeds took place in big-city Boston rather than the western reaches of the state. Inwardly though, Sonja Farak was striving. What Netflix's How To Fix a Drug Scandal didn't tell you - Esquire Penate is seeking a new trial, contending the conviction should be reversed because of prosecutorial misconduct and evidence tainted by Farak. Netflix's How to Fix a Drug Scandal: What Happened To Sonja Farak "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.". Join us. 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. wrote she "tried to resist using @ work, but ended up failing." Foster consulted Kaczmarek about the files contents, according to an
Sonja Farak in How to Fix a Drug Scandal. She played as the starting guard for Portsmouth High Schools freshman team. 2. As he leafed through three boxes of evidence, he found the substance abuse worksheets and diaries. 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. And when defense attorneys tried to do it themselves, Coakley's office blocked their efforts. What Did Sonja Farak Do, Exactly? After graduating from Portsmouth High School, Farak attended the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where she got a bachelor of science degree in biochemistry in 2000. State officials rushed to condemn her loudly and publicly. Defense attorneys say withheld Farak notes implicate prosecutors - News While Dookhan had tampered with evidence and indulged in dry-labbing, Farak stole from her workplace. It's Boston local news in one concise, fun and informative email. Netflix's How to Fix a Drug Scandal: A staggering true story of - Vox Sonja Farak was a chemist at a state drug lab in Amherst, Massachusetts, from 2005 to 2013. Her medical records included notes from Faraks therapist in Amherst, Anna Kogan. 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. A year later, in October 2014, prosecutors relented, granting access to the full evidence in Farak's case to attorney Luke Ryan. 2023 Cinemaholic Inc. All rights reserved. The attorney general's representative at these hearings was Assistant Attorney General Kris Foster, a recent hire. It declined Farak's offer of a detailed confession in exchange for leniency, nixing the offer without even negotiating terms. 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. The Hinton drug lab, operated by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, appears to have been run largely on the honor system. Penate alleged Kaczmarek's actions violated his "Brady rights," which require prosecutors to turn over potentially exculpatory evidence to defense counsel. If they'd kept digging, defendants might still have learned the crucial facts. Investigators gave that information to Kaczmarek and the state AG's office,according tohearings before thestate board that disciplines attorneys. Since her release, she has kept a low profile and managed to stay out of the public . 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. Having barely investigated her, prosecutors indicted Farak only for the samples in her possession the day she was caught. "Dookhan's consistently high testing volumes should have been a clear indication that a more thorough analysis and review of her work was needed," an internal review found. "Because on almost a daily basis Farak abused narcoticsthere is no assurance that she was able to perform chemical analysis correctly," the judge found. Who is Sonja Farak? 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. Stream GBH's Award-Winning Content For Parents And Children. 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. Verner, who testified that he didn't "micromanage" Kaczmarek, escaped criticism. State prosecutors gave Farak the immunity they had declined to grant two years earlier, then asked when she started analyzing samples while high. A Powerful EHR to Manage a Thriving Practice. But unlike with Dookhan, no one launched a bigger investigation of Farak. | Mucha gente que vio el programa se pregunta: dnde est Sonja Farak ahora? Two detectives found Farak at a courthouse waiting to testify on an unrelated matter. "It is critical that all parties have unquestioned faith in that process from the beginning so that they will have full confidence in the conclusions drawn at the end," Coakley said. 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. Powered by. Magistrate Judge Robertson denied a request in Penate's lawsuit that Kaczmarek be prohibited from contesting the special hearing officer's findings. It was. "he didn't request a warrant. Farak admitted to being on a list of drugs while working between 2004 and her 2013 arrest. Officials recognized the worksheets for what they were: near-indisputable confessions. With the Dookhan case so fresh, reporters immediately labeled Farak "the second chemist. How to Fix a Drug Scandal is an American true crime documentary miniseries that was released on Netflix on April 1, 2020. 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. Four months after Ryan found the worksheets, Judge Kinder
Investigators either missed or declined opportunities to dig very deep. ", But another co-worker was suspicious, particularly since he "never saw Dookhan in front of a microscope.". Carr weaves Farak's story into that of another Massachusetts chemist, Annie Dookhan, who worked across the state at the Hinton drug lab in Boston. Farak. "I was totally controlled by my addiction," Farak later testified. food banks expect a surge, As streaming services boom, cable TV continues its decline. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); NEXT: Zoning Makes the Green New Deal Impossible. Kaczmarek argued before the BBO, and in response to Penate's lawsuit, that she was focused on prosecuting Farak and not defendants, like Penate, whose criminal cases were affected by Farak's misconduct. Grand Jury Transcript - Sonja Farak - September 16, 2015 Contributed by Shawn Musgrave (Musgrave Investigations) p. 1. She grew up in Portsmouth with her sister Amy. But Ryan, who represented Penate, suspected it was more extensive. 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. Dookhan had seeded public mistrust in the criminal justice system, which "now becomes an issue in every criminal trial for every defendant.". Instead, Kaczmarek proceeded as if the substance abuse was a recent development. 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. From the April 2023 issue, Billy Binion The defense bar also demanded answers on how such crucial evidence stayed buried for so long. ", The chemist, Sonja Farak, worked at the state drug lab in Amherst, Massachusetts, for more than eight years. The defense bar had raised concerns that prosecutors might be "perceived as having a stake" in such an investigation. And when the tests she did run came back negative, Dookhan added controlled substances to the vials. As Solotaroff recounts in detail, Massachusetts attorney Luke Ryan represented two people who were accused of drug charges that Farak had analyzed . Although the year she wrote the notes wasnt listed on the worksheet, in the six years prior to her arrest, 2011 is the only year in which Dec. 22 fell on a Thursday. 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. Sonja Farak worked as a chemist for the state of Massachusetts, specializing in identifying illegal substances. The Netflix docuseries ends by acknowledging that Farak received an 18-month sentence, and that defense attorney Luke Ryan was able . After weeks of hearings, a "special hearing officer" selected by the board recommended potential sanctions against them all. Kaczmarek, along with former assistant attorneys general Kris Foster and John Verner, all face possible sanctions. State police took these worksheets from Farak's car in January 2013, the same day they arrested her for tampering with evidence and for cocaine possession. "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. They never searched Farak's computer or her home. That motion was denied, and the notice letters will explain Farak's tampering without any mention of prosecutorial misconduct. On the surface, their crimes dont seem as injurious and they dont seem to enjoy inflicting pain on others. ", Everyone Practices Cancel Culture | Opinion, Deplatforming Free Speech is Dangerous | Opinion. And then the bigger investigation was going to be someone else.". You can check your records electronically by following this link: https://icori.chs.state.ma.us. 3.3.2023 5:45 PM, Jacob Sullum Process Notes/Psychotherapy Notes Process notes are sometimes also referred to as psychotherapy notesthey're the notes you take during or after a session. The Amherst lab had called state police when the two missing samples were noticed in 2013. Thus, only defendants whose evidence she tested in the six-month window before her arrest could challenge their cases. Despite being a star child of the family, Sonja suffered from the mental illnesses that haunted her even in adulthood. It included information about the type of drugs she tampered with. We couldn't do it without you. State prosecutors hadnt provided this evidence to other district attorneys offices contending with the Farak fallout, either. Her notes record on-the-job drug use ranging from small nips of the lab's baseline. But she worried they might be privileged as health information. The results of that intake interview and notes from several of Farak's therapists all detailing Farak's drug use going back years were obtained by defense attorneys on behalf of . 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.". She had never quashed a subpoena before, but supervisors told her to fend off motions about Farak. A few months before her arrest, Farak's counselor recommended in-patient rehab. 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. The lead prosecutor on Farak's case knew about the diaries, as did supervisors at the state attorney general's office. Instead, she submitted an intentionally vague letter to the judge claiming defense attorneys already had everything. Episode 2. In 2017, a different judge ruled that Foster's actions constituted a "fraud upon the court," calling the letter "deliberately misleading." She started smoking crack cocaine in 2011 and was soon using it 10 to 12 times a day. Yet Dookhan's brazen crimes went undetected for ages. If chemists had to testify in person, Coakley warned melodramatically, misdemeanor drug prosecutions "would essentially grind to a halt. The disgraced chemist was sentenced to less than two years behind bars in 2014, following her guilty pleas for stealing cocaine from the lab. 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. A final decision is still pending and must be approved by the state Supreme Judicial Court. But she insisted the drugs didn't compromise her worka belief that one judge would aptly declare "belies logic.". 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. "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." "The gravity of the present case cannot be overstated," Kaczmarek wrote in her memo recommending a prison sentence of five to seven years. 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. After high school, Sonja went on to major in biochemistry at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in western Massachusetts. Sonja Farak Cracked Out - Rough Diplomacy Who Are Sonja Farak and Annie Dookhan? How to Fix a Drug Scandal True Story When grand jury materials were eventually released to defense attorneys, then, they did not mention that these documents existed. This was not true, as Nassif's department later conceded. memo, Kaczmarek told her supervisors that "Farak's admissions on her 'emotional worksheets' recovered from her car detail her struggle with substance abuse. She is not active on any social media platform and has kept her distance from the press. . "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. Why Won't Maryland Sell Me a Goddamn Beer? Without access to the diaries, the Springfield judge in 2013 found that Farak had starting stealing from samples in summer 2012. Sonja Farak: 35,000 criminal cases were dismissed because this - MEAWW That settlement awaits approval by a judge. compelled release of additional drug treatment records, which indicated Farak used a variety of drugs that she stole from the lab for years. Heres what you need to know about Sonja Farak: Farak was born on January 13, 1978, in Rhode Island to Stanley and Linda Farak. Report shows more than 24k wrongful convictions dismissed in drug lab 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. 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. 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." Velis said he stood by the findings. . The report
Widening scandal at state drug lab in Mass. exposes opportunities for | Instead, Kaczmarek provided copies to Farak's own attorney and asked that all evidence from Farak's car, including the worksheets, be kept away from prying defense attorneys representing the thousands of people convicted of drug crimes based on Farak's work. The Attorney Generals Office, Velis and Merrigan and the state police declined to answer questions about the handling of the Farak evidence. Her access to evidence was not restricted, and she continued testifying in court. Sonja Farak, a chemist with a longterm mental health struggle, is the catalyst of the story, but it doesn't end with her. Coakley's office finally launched a criminal investigation in July 2012, more than a year after the infraction was discovered by Dookhan's supervisors. Together, we can create a more connected and informed world. Farak had started taking drugs on the job within months of joining the Amherst lab in 2004. Shawn Musgrave The governor didn't appoint the inspector general or anyone else to determine how long Farak was altering samples or running analyses while high. On a Friday afternoon in January 2013, a call came in to Coakley's office: "We have another Annie Dookhan out west.". 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. "No reasonablejury could conclude that this evidence is not favorable.". A scandal erupts, raising questions for the thousands of defendants in her cases. Release year: 2020. 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.". Two Massachusetts drug lab technicians Sonja Farak and Annie Dookhan were caught tainting evidence in separate drug labs in different but equally shocking ways. When the Farak scandal erupted, that misconduct came into view. Many more are likely to follow, with the total expected to exceed 50,000. As . Rollins said it covers "a period of time in which either now disgraced chemist Annie Dookhan, or another convicted chemist Sonja Farak ," worked there. Where is Sonja Farak from How To Fix A Drug Scandal now? Farak admitted in testimony that she began using drugs almost as soon as she started working at the Massachusetts State Crime Lab in Amherst. She was sentenced in 2014 to 18 months in prison and 5 years of probation. 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. In court, she added that there was "no smoking gun" in the evidence. The fact that she ran analyses while high and regularly dipped into samples casts doubt on thousands of convictions. 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. Applying Routine Activity Theory: A Case Study of the Sonya Farak Drug She tried to kill herself in high school, according to Rolling Stone. 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. Join half a million readers enjoying Newsweek's free newsletters, Sonja Farak is the subject of Netflix's "How To Fix a Drug Scandal. 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.". 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. February 2013 email, to which he attached the worksheets. 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. 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. 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. email highlighted in the Velis-Merrigan report. Democratic Gov. To better estimate how many convictions will have to be reviewed because of Farak, the Supreme Judicial Court
How to Fix a Drug Scandal - Wikipedia Here's Where Sonja Farak Is Now, After 'How to Fix a Drug Scandal' El 6 de enero de 2014, Farak se declar culpable de los cargos en su contra. How to Fix a Drug Scandal: With Shannon O'Neill, Karl Kenzler, Paul Solotaroff, Scott Allen. Yet state prosecutors withheld Farak's handwritten notes about her drug use, theft, and evidence tampering from defense attorneys and a judge for more than a year. 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. Chemist was high at work for 8 years: court docs - CBS News This immediately provoked questions about the thousands of cases in which her findings had contributed to the imprisonment of an individual. NORTHAMPTON Sonja J. Farak told a nurse at the Western Massachusetts Compromised drug samples often fit the definition. 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. So, in a way, it is not from her that the queue of the blame should begin; it should be from the lab and the authorities themselves. wrote to the Attorney Generals Office two days later. denied Penates motion to dismiss the case, saying there was no evidence that Faraks misconduct extended to his case. "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. 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. Sonja Farak had admitted to stealing and using drugs from the drug lab where she worked as a chemist for around 9 years. Shown results suggesting otherwise, she copped to contaminating samples "a few times" during the previous "two to three years.". Its unclear if Farak is still with Lee, as they have both remained out of the public eye since the case. Farak trabaj en el laboratorio Amherst desde el verano de 2004 y poco despus comenz a tomar las drogas del laboratorio. Still, the state was acquiring evidence. Dookhan was now spending less time at her lab bench and more time testifying in court about her results. 3.3.2023 4:50 PM, 2022 Reason Foundation | "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.". Foster
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. Meanwhile, other top prosecutors, including Coakley, largely escaped criticism for their collective failure to hand over evidence that they were bound by constitutional mandate to share with defendants. She was ar-rested for tampering with evidence while abusing narcotics at work. Kaczmarek also oversaw the prosecution for the attorney general's office in that case. 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." (Netflix) A former state chemist, Sonja Farak, made headlines in 2013 when she was arrested for stealing and using drugs from a laboratory. 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. Ryan finally viewed the file in the attorney generals offices in October 2014. ", Officials rushed to downplay the situation in Amherst. The newest true crime series from Netflix, How to Fix a Drug Scandal, was released on April 1, 2020. Netflixs How to Fix a Drug Scandal Story: 5 Fast Facts. One colleague called her the "super woman of the lab. 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. The former judges and the state police officers who helped them conducted a thorough review, said Emalie Gainey, spokeswoman for Attorney General Maura Healey.