Among the papers they seized were handwritten worksheets Farak completed for drug-abuse therapy. Support GBH. 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.". They were all rendered unacceptable. denied Penates motion to dismiss the case, saying there was no evidence that Faraks misconduct extended to his case. In the series, it's explained that Farak loved the energy the meth gave her. 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. "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.". The defense bar also demanded answers on how such crucial evidence stayed buried for so long. Velis said he stood by the findings. The scandal led. ", The chemist, Sonja Farak, worked at the state drug lab in Amherst, Massachusetts, for more than eight years. Even when she failed a post-arrest drug testprompting the lead investigator to quip to Kaczmarek, "I hope she doesn't have a stash in her house! In 2019, the chemist was spotted at federal court in Springfield, MA , attending a civil case. 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. Farak was a former lab chemist at a lab in Amherst, Massachusetts and was convicted of stealing and using drugs from the lab where she worked. 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. Farak struggled with mental health throughout her life, the documentary series explains. | Coakley assigned the case against Dookhan to Assistant Attorney General Anne Kaczmarek and her supervisor, John Verner. "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.". A judge sentenced Dookhan to three years in prison; she was granted parole in April 2016. "No reasonable individual could have failed to appreciate the unlawfulness of [Kaczmarek's] actions in these circumstances," Robertson wrote in her ruling. Kaczmarek is one of three former prosecutors whose role in the prosecution of Farak later became the focus of several lawsuits and disciplinary hearings. The disgraced chemist was sentenced to less than two years behind bars in 2014, following her guilty pleas for stealing cocaine from the lab. She had never quashed a subpoena before, but supervisors told her to fend off motions about Farak. But she insisted the drugs didn't compromise her worka belief that one judge would aptly declare "belies logic.". Farak. The chemist, Sonja Farak, worked at the Amherst crime . When grand jury materials were eventually released to defense attorneys, then, they did not mention that these documents existed. Due to the conviction, prosecutors were forced to dismiss more than . Shown results suggesting otherwise, she copped to contaminating samples "a few times" during the previous "two to three years.". At the time of Penates trial, the state Attorney Generals Office contended Faraks misdeeds dated back only as far as 2012. ", In 2004, her first full year at the lab, Dookhan reported analyzing approximately 700 samples per month. 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. His report deemed Dookhan the "sole bad actor" at the lab, a finding that remains disputed in some circles. As How to Fix a Drug Scandal explores, Farak had long struggled with her mental . Where is Sonja now? One of the reasons for the decrepit state and standard of the Amherst lab was the lack of funds. Maybe it's not a matter of checklists or reminders that prosecutors have to keep their eyes open for improprieties. 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. 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. Accessibility | But she worried they might be privileged as health information. She started doing drugs almost as soon as she took the job at Amherst, but it was after years of negligence on her superiors part that her actions finally came to light. The criminal prosecution wasn't the only investigation of the Dookhan scandal. The justices ordered Healey's department to cover all costs of notifying all defendants whose cases were dismissed. Foster 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. As . Disgraced drug lab chemist Sonja Farak emerges as her own attorney as defendant in $5.7 million federal lawsuit. (Conveniently, they also found a Patriots schedule from 2011 in the car.). Such strong claims were too hasty at best, since investigators had not yet finished basic searches; three days later, police executed a warrant for a duffel bag they found stuffed behind Farak's desk. 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. The Dookhan prosecution was barely underway, a grand jury having returned indictments a few weeks earlier. After she was caught, Farak pleaded guilty to stealing drugs from the lab and was sentenced to prison time of 18 months. A status hearing on Penate's suit, which was filed in 2017, is scheduled for July. On another worksheet chronicling her struggle not to use, she described 12 of the next 13 samples assigned to her for testing as "urge-ful.". Together, we can create a more connected and informed world. His is one of what lawyers say could be thousands of convictions questioned in the wake of the Farak scandal. Coakley did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story. The cocaine, found in an unsealed, completed drug-testing kit, tested negativemeaning Farak had seemingly replaced the formerly "positive" drugs with falsified substances. Faraks notes also According to her teammates, She was the best center in the league last year, and they [felt] stronger with her in there than with some guys.. She was arrested in 2013 when the supervisor at the Amherst lab was made aware that two samples were missing. She had been accused of intentional infliction of emotional distress in addition to the conspiracy to violate [Penates] civil rights.. 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. Gainey added that Healey is pleased with their conclusion that prosecutors and the state police acted appropriately. 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.". Lab's standards on a fairly regular basis beginning in late 2004 or early 2005," the attorney general's report notes in launching its recounting of the chemist's drug-taking journey . 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. Kaczmarek had obtained the evidence at issue while she was prosecuting Farak on state charges of tampering with evidence and drug possession. From 2004 to 2013, Farak took advantage of . Among the papers they seized were handwritten worksheets Farak completed for drug-abuse therapy. Instead, she submitted an intentionally vague letter to the judge claiming defense attorneys already had everything. It was an astoundingly light touch for the second state chemist arrested in six months. Sonja Farak is in the grip of a rubbed-raw depression that hasn't responded to medication. 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. ", But another co-worker was suspicious, particularly since he "never saw Dookhan in front of a microscope.". 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. You have been subscribed to WBUR Today. The staff in the new lab was also doubled, and the number of trainees was also increased. | The medical records stated that she did not have an existing drug problem that was amplified by her access to more substances. At the time of her arrest, she had resided in 37 Laurel Park in Northampton. Soon after Dookhan's arrest, Coakley's office asked the governor to order a broader independent probe of the Hinton lab. She grew up in Portsmouth with her sister Amy. (Netflix) A former state chemist, Sonja Farak, made headlines in 2013 when she was arrested for stealing and using drugs from a laboratory. Instead, Coakley's office served as gatekeeper to evidence that could have untangled the scandal and freed thousands of people from prison and jail years earlier, or at least wiped their improper convictions off the books. "Please don't let this get more complicated than we thought," Kaczmarek replied when Ballou, the lead investigator, flagged irregularities in Farak's analysis in a case featuring pain pills. After graduating from Portsmouth High School, Farak attended the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where she got a bachelor of science degree in biochemistry in 2000. . 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. A. Farak signed a certification of drug samples in Penate's case on Dec. 22, 2011. Sgt. Farak worked for the Amherst Drug Lab in Massachusetts for 9 years when she was convicted of stealing and using them. The next month, Ryan asked again. Most important, they found seven worksheets from Farak's substance abuse therapy. When a Therapy Session starts, the software automatically creates a To-Do list item reminding users to create the relevant documentation. Penate is seeking a new trial, contending the conviction should be reversed because of prosecutorial misconduct and evidence tainted by Farak. Farak had started taking drugs on the job within months of joining the lab. 3.3.2023 4:50 PM, 2022 Reason Foundation | 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. She tried to kill herself in high school, according to Rolling Stone. "Going to use phentermine," she wrote on another, "but when I went to take it, I saw how little (v. little) there is left = ended up not using. On paper, these numbers made Dookhan the most productive chemist at Hinton; the next most productive averaged around 300 samples per month. Judge Kinder ordered her to produce all potentially privileged documents for his review to determine whether they could be disclosed. After high school, Sonja went on to major in biochemistry at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in western Massachusetts. "It would be difficult to overstate the significance of these documents," Ryan wrote to the attorney general's office. She played as the starting guard for Portsmouth High Schools freshman team. As extensively detailed in How to Fix a Drug Scandal, Farak was arrested on January 19, 2013. 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. In fall 2012, just five months before her arrest, Annie Dookhan confessed to faking analyses and altering samples in the Boston testing facility where she worked. 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. ordered a report on the history of her illicit behavior. Approximately one year later, she pled guilty to tampering with evidence, unlawful possession, and stealing narcotics. This very well could have been the end of the investigative trail but for a few stubborn defense lawyers, who appealed the ruling. 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. Months after Farak pleaded guilty in January 2014, Ryan filed a 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. Ryan then filed a "As the gatekeeper to this evidence, she failed to turn over documents, and she adamantly opposed the requests for access. Its unclear if Farak is still with Lee, as they have both remained out of the public eye since the case. 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. Episode 1. Her access to evidence was not restricted, and she continued testifying in court. But whether anyone investigated her conduct during a brief stint working at the state's Boston drug lab is at . Terms Of Use, (Annie Dookhan (left) and Sonja Farak, Associated Press). 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. When defense lawyers asked to see evidence for themselves, state prosecutors smeared them as pursuing a "fishing expedition.". Compromised drug samples often fit the definition. "It was almost like Dookhan wanted to get caught," one of her former co-workers told state police in 2012. Her wrongdoings were exposed when unsealed cocaine and a crack pipe were found under her desk. She received an email from a detective weeks after Farak's arrest containing detailed notes Farak made in conjunction with her own drug treatment, pointedly identified as "FARAK Admissions" but failed to disclose them for years. She was sentenced in 2014 to 18 months in prison and 5 years of probation. The chemist, Sonja Farak, worked at the state drug lab in Amherst, Massachusetts, for more than eight years. She was trying to suppress mental health issues, depression in specific, and she attempted to kill herself in high school, according to Rolling Stone. "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. Cleverly omitting pronouns, she wrote that "after reviewing" the file, "every documenthas been disclosed." 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. Dookhan was now spending less time at her lab bench and more time testifying in court about her results. Ryan finally viewed the file in the attorney generals offices in October 2014. Initially, she had represented herself in answer to the complaints lodged against her, but later, she turned to Susan Sachs, who represented her since, not just on the Penate lawsuit, but also on any other case that emerged as the result of her actions in Amherst. . That motion was denied, and the notice letters will explain Farak's tampering without any mention of prosecutorial misconduct. From the April 2023 issue, Billy Binion Joseph Ballou, lead investigator for the state police, called them the most important documents from the car. Process Notes/Psychotherapy Notes Process notes are sometimes also referred to as psychotherapy notesthey're the notes you take during or after a session. Because of all that, it's no surprise that Farak was sent to prison in Massachusetts. Her role was to test for the presence of illegal substances, which could be instrumental in thousands of . It took another three years for the truth to emerge. 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. 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.". 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 . 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. 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.". 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. Talking Politics: Should a new government agency protect the coastline from climate change? Two detectives found Farak at a courthouse waiting to testify on an unrelated matter. The attorney general's representative at these hearings was Assistant Attorney General Kris Foster, a recent hire. As a teenager, she had attempted suicide. You can check your records electronically by following this link: https://icori.chs.state.ma.us. He recommended she lose her law license for two years; the Office of Bar Counsel later argued Kaczmarek should be disbarred. 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. While Dookhan had tampered with evidence and indulged in dry-labbing, Farak stole from her workplace. Stream GBH's Award-Winning Content For Parents And Children. memo, Kaczmarek told her supervisors that "Farak's admissions on her 'emotional worksheets' recovered from her car detail her struggle with substance abuse. 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." A scandal erupts, raising questions for the thousands of defendants in her cases. "If she were suffering from back injurymaybe she took some oxys?" They tend to be more freeform notes about the session and your impressions of the client's statements and demeanour. "Because on almost a daily basis Farak abused narcoticsthere is no assurance that she was able to perform chemical analysis correctly," the judge found. Join us. Below is an outline of her charges. Sonja Farak was a chemist at a state drug lab in Amherst, Massachusetts, from 2005 to 2013. 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. The judge ordered prosecutors and defense attorneys to coordinate on identifying undisclosed emails related to documents seized from the disgraced state crime lab chemist. 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. Coakley's office finally launched a criminal investigation in July 2012, more than a year after the infraction was discovered by Dookhan's supervisors. State prosecutors hadnt provided this evidence to other district attorneys offices contending with the Farak fallout, either. She married Lee after starting her job, but their marriage was rocky. The last contact information provided by her, in response to Penates allegations, placed her residence in Hatfield, Massachusetts. In a letter filed with the Supreme Court, Julianne Nassif, a lab supervisor, wrote that Hinton had "appropriate quality control" measures. Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility at GBH, Transparency in Coverage Cost-Sharing Disclosures. The new numbers appear in a report issued by a court-designated "Special Master." 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. One thing that How to Fix a Drug Scandal makes clear is that it wasnt all Sonja Faraks fault. motion on behalf of another client to see the evidence. After the Supreme Court's decision, a skeptical colleague started tracking how many microscope slides Dookhan used to test samples for cocaine. Over time, Farak's drug use turned to cocaine, LSD and, eventually, crack. 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. "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. During the next four years, she would periodically sober up and then relapse. The hotline is open Monday through Friday, from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. For people with disabilities needing assistance with the Public Files, contact Glenn Heath at 617-300-3268. And so, when she pleaded guilty in January 2014, Farak got what one attorney called "de facto immunity." Yet Dookhan's brazen crimes went undetected for ages. Investigators either missed or declined opportunities to dig very deep. After serving for 13 months, she was released on parole in 2015. Four months after Ryan found the worksheets, Judge Kinder According to the Daily Hampshire Gazette, Farak graduated with awards and distinctions. Powered by WordPress.com VIP. In the aftermath, the court felt it necessary to make clear that "no prosecutorhas the authority to decline to disclose exculpatory information.". 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. Foster replied that because the investigation against Farak was ongoing, she couldnt let him see it. It didnt matter whether or not she was the one who did the testing or some other chemist. ", Officials rushed to downplay the situation in Amherst. Her notes record on-the-job drug use ranging from small nips of the lab's baseline. It's not as bad as Dookhan, they asserted and implied over and over. Farak wasn't the first Massachusetts chemist to tamper with drug evidence. Sonja Farak (Netflix) An ex-lab chemist Sonja Farak's negligence and misdeeds shocked US when she was arrested in 2013 for stealing and using drugs from the lab where she worked. Sonja Farak in How to Fix a Drug Scandal. 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. Many more are likely to follow, with the total expected to exceed 50,000. Democratic Gov. Heres what you need to know about Sonja Farak: Farak was born on January 13, 1978, in Rhode Island to Stanley and Linda Farak. Out of "an abundance of caution," Kaczmarek didn't present them to the grand jury that was convened to determine whether to indict Farak. Kaczmarek also oversaw the prosecution for the attorney general's office in that case. The newest true crime series from Netflix, How to Fix a Drug Scandal, was released on April 1, 2020. "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." 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. Kaczmarek, along with former assistant attorneys general Kris Foster and John Verner, all face possible sanctions. 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. He didn't buy her quibbling that there's a difference between an explicit lie and obfuscation by grammar. 3.4.2023 8:00 AM, Reason Staff
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