Kaczmarek is one of three former prosecutors whose role in the prosecution of Farak later became the focus of several lawsuits and disciplinary hearings. 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. Support GBH. 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. According to the Daily Hampshire Gazette, Farak graduated with awards and distinctions. In a March 2013
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.
Massachusetts DA seeks to vacate thousands of drug convictions - CNN Martha Coakley, then attorney general for the state, argued in Melendez-Diaz that a chemist's certificate contains only "neutral, objective facts." Faraks wife had her own mental health problems, and according to Rolling Stone, Farak would have conflict with her wife every night at home. Months after Farak pleaded guilty in January 2014, Ryan filed a
Where Is Sonja Farak Now? "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. But Ryan, who represented Penate, suspected it was more extensive. He recommended she lose her law license for two years; the Office of Bar Counsel later argued Kaczmarek should be disbarred. And so, when she pleaded guilty in January 2014, Farak got what one attorney called "de facto immunity." It included information about the type of drugs she tampered with. 1. ", The chemist, Sonja Farak, worked at the state drug lab in Amherst, Massachusetts, for more than eight years. 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. Penate is seeking a new trial, contending the conviction should be reversed because of prosecutorial misconduct and evidence tainted by Farak. Thanks largely to the prosecutors' deception, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in October 2018 was forced to dismiss thousands of cases Farak may never have even touched, including every single conviction based on evidence processed at the Amherst lab from 2009 to the day of Farak's arrest in 2013. 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. In court, she added that there was "no smoking gun" in the evidence. "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.".
Massachusetts crime lab scandal worsens: Dookhan and Farak. 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.". 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.
Who Is Sonja Farak From Netflix Docu-Series How To Fix A Drug Scandal Her ar-rest led to the dismissal of thousands of drug cases in Massachusetts. In 2017, a different judge ruled that Foster's actions constituted a "fraud upon the court," calling the letter "deliberately misleading." The chemist, Sonja Farak, worked at the Amherst crime .
Where is Sonja Farak Now? - The Cinemaholic There is nothing to indicate that the allegations against Farak date back to the time she tested the drugs in Penates case. 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.
Where Is Sonja Farak From 'How To Fix A Drug Scandal' Now? - Women's Health After graduating from Portsmouth High School, Farak attended the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where she got a bachelor of science degree in biochemistry in 2000. Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility at GBH, Transparency in Coverage Cost-Sharing Disclosures. memo to Judge Kinder the next week, Foster said she reviewed the file, and said every document in it had already been disclosed. Please note that if your case has been identified for dismissal, it could take approximately 2-3 months for the relevant court records to be updated. It declined Farak's offer of a detailed confession in exchange for leniency, nixing the offer without even negotiating terms. Farak was arrested the next day, and the attorney general's office assigned the case to Anne Kaczmarek. Heres what you need to know about Sonja Farak: Farak was born on January 13, 1978, in Rhode Island to Stanley and Linda Farak. Only a few months after Dookhan's conviction, it was discovered that another Massachusetts crime lab worker, Sonja Farak, who was addicted to drugs, not only stole her supply from the. another filing.
sonja farak - masslive.com Foster protested that portions of the evidentiary file in question might be privileged or not subject to disclosure. A local prosecutor also asked Ballou to look into a case Farak had tested as far back as 2005. 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. After serving just a year of her 18 month sentence, Farak was released from prison in 2015. "Because on almost a daily basis Farak abused narcoticsthere is no assurance that she was able to perform chemical analysis correctly," the judge found. Farak received a sentence of 18 months in jail and 5 years of probation. 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. 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. After she was caught, Farak pleaded guilty to stealing drugs from the lab and was sentenced to prison time of 18 months. She had been accused of intentional infliction of emotional distress in addition to the conspiracy to violate [Penates] civil rights..
The Chemists and the Cover-Up - Reason.com But absent evidence of aggravating misconduct by prosecutors or cops, the majority ruled, Dookhan's tampering alone didn't justify a blanket dismissal of every case she had touched. At some point, the attorney general's office stopped chasing leads entirely. Verner, who testified that he didn't "micromanage" Kaczmarek, escaped criticism. She was released in 2015, as reported by Mass Live. The prosecutors have been tied to the drug lab scandal involving disgraced former state chemist Sonja Farak, who admitted to stealing and using drugs from an Amherst state lab. After high school, Sonja went on to major in biochemistry at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in western Massachusetts. "These drugswere tested fairly," Coakley claimed the day after Farak's arrest. "The gravity of the present case cannot be overstated," Kaczmarek wrote in her memo recommending a prison sentence of five to seven years. In 2012, she began taking from co-workers' samples, forging intake forms and editing the lab database to cover her tracks. Judge Kinder denied Ryans motion. Each employee had a unique swipe card, but Farak simply used a physical key to get in after hours and on weekends. Having barely investigated her, prosecutors indicted Farak only for the samples in her possession the day she was caught. 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. She was sentenced to 18 months in jail plus five years of probation. She even made her own crack in the lab. Fortunately, the courts largely ignored this shallow investigation. 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. A scandal erupts, raising questions for the thousands of defendants in her cases. Netflixs How to Fix a Drug Scandal Story: 5 Fast Facts. 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.". What Did Sonja Farak Do, Exactly? The defense bar had raised concerns that prosecutors might be "perceived as having a stake" in such an investigation. Farak worked for the Amherst Drug Lab in Massachusetts for 9 years when she was convicted of stealing and using them. NORTHAMPTON Sonja J. Farak told a nurse at the Western Massachusetts Regional Women's Correctional Center in Chicopee in December 2013 that she used methamphetamines and other stimulants "whenever she could get her hands on them." And since her job as a chemist was to test drug samples at a state drug lab in Amherst, that opportunity came daily. Sgt. One colleague called her the "super woman of the lab. This was not true, as Nassif's department later conceded. Yet Dookhan's brazen crimes went undetected for ages. Judge Kinder ordered her to produce all potentially privileged documents for his review to determine whether they could be disclosed.
Sonja Farak: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know | Heavy.com ", Officials rushed to downplay the situation in Amherst. Talking Politics: Should a new government agency protect the coastline from climate change? They were found with their packaging sliced open and their contents apparently altered.
In Sonja Farak drug lab scandal, Mass - The Washington Post Chemist was high at work for 8 years: court docs - CBS News Farak trabaj en el laboratorio Amherst desde el verano de 2004 y poco despus comenz a tomar las drogas del laboratorio. A final decision is still pending and must be approved by the state Supreme Judicial Court.
Where is Sonja Farak from How To Fix A Drug Scandal now? Coakley assigned the case against Dookhan to Assistant Attorney General Anne Kaczmarek and her supervisor, John Verner. 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." The hotline is open Monday through Friday, from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. The information showed that Farak sought therapy for drug addiction and that her misconduct had been ongoing for years. 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. Thus, only defendants whose evidence she tested in the six-month window before her arrest could challenge their cases. The defense bar also demanded answers on how such crucial evidence stayed buried for so long. | But she insisted the drugs didn't compromise her worka belief that one judge would aptly declare "belies logic.". Maybe it's not a matter of checklists or reminders that prosecutors have to keep their eyes open for improprieties. 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. Inwardly though, Sonja Farak was striving. The charges against Penate were dismissed after Farak's conviction. 2023 Cinemaholic Inc. All rights reserved. Terms Of Use, (Annie Dookhan (left) and Sonja Farak, Associated Press). Her notes record on-the-job drug use ranging from small nips of the lab's baseline standard stock of the stimulant phentermine to stealing crack not only from her own samples but from colleagues' as well. Penate argued the court should follow those findings. Defense attorneys had. 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. The Dookhan prosecution was barely underway, a grand jury having returned indictments a few weeks earlier. Among the papers they seized were handwritten worksheets Farak completed for drug-abuse therapy. "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 place was closed as soon as Faraks crimes came to light. You can check your records electronically by following this link: https://icori.chs.state.ma.us. When a Therapy Session starts, the software automatically creates a To-Do list item reminding users to create the relevant documentation. 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. The court also dismissed all meth cases processed at the lab since Farak started in 2004. 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. Sonja Farak, a chemist with a longterm mental health struggle, is the catalyst of the story, but it doesn't end with her. Deval Patrick's office didn't learn about the protocol breach until December 2011. It took another three years for the truth to emerge. In 2019, the chemist was spotted at federal court in Springfield, MA , attending a civil case. State prosecutors gave Farak the immunity they had declined to grant two years earlier, then asked when she started analyzing samples while high. 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. 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. A few months before her arrest, Farak's counselor recommended in-patient rehab. They tend to be more freeform notes about the session and your impressions of the client's statements and demeanour. 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.". Because state prosecutors hid Farak's substance abuse diaries, it took far too long for the full timeline of her crimes to become public.
Applying Routine Activity Theory: A Case Study of the Sonya Farak Drug Exhausted from the ongoing scandal in Boston, state officials were desperate for damage control. It was. During the next four years, she would periodically sober up and then relapse. Before her sentencing, Farak failed a drug test while out on bail, according to Mass Live. If Farak found a substance was a true drug, the person it was confiscated from could be convicted of a substance-related crime. Her access to evidence was not restricted, and she continued testifying in court. As a teenager, she had attempted suicide. And when the tests she did run came back negative, Dookhan added controlled substances to the vials. The civil lawsuit was one of the last tied to prosecutors' disputedhandling of the case against disgraced ex-chemist Sonja Farak, who was convicted in 2014 of ingesting drug samples she was supposed to test at the Amherst state drug lab. 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. The justices ordered Healey's department to cover all costs of notifying all defendants whose cases were dismissed.
Gainey added that Healey is pleased with their conclusion that prosecutors and the state police acted appropriately. 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. When grand jury materials were eventually released to defense attorneys, then, they did not mention that these documents existed.
After weeks of hearings, a "special hearing officer" selected by the board recommended potential sanctions against them all. When the Farak scandal erupted, that misconduct came into view. 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. Cleverly omitting pronouns, she wrote that "after reviewing" the file, "every documenthas been disclosed." Instead, she submitted an intentionally vague letter to the judge claiming defense attorneys already had everything. 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. Follow us so you don't miss a thing! 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.". As How to Fix a Drug Scandal explores, Farak had long struggled with her mental . She was also testifying in court while high. Deborah Becker Twitter Host/ReporterDeborah Becker is a senior correspondent and host at WBUR. They wrote that Lee, disabled by a stew of mental ailments, [spent] her hours surfing the Web in a haze.. 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. On top of that, it was also ensured that no analyst would ever work without supervision. As . | Damning evidence reveals drug lab chemist Sonja Farak's addictions. Sonja Farak had admitted to stealing and using drugs from the drug lab where she worked as a chemist for around 9 years. At this point, Farakunlike Dookhandidn't admit anything. 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. As he leafed through three boxes of evidence, he found the substance abuse worksheets and diaries. . Its unclear if Farak is still with Lee, as they have both remained out of the public eye since the case. | 3.3.2023 5:45 PM, Jacob Sullum Reporting for this story was supported by the Fund for Investigative Journalism. "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. During her trial, her defense lawyer Elaine Pourinski said that Farak wasnt taking drugs to party, but instead to control her depression. One of the reasons for the decrepit state and standard of the Amherst lab was the lack of funds. 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. High Massachusetts Lab Chemist Causes Thousands Of Drug Cases To Be Dismissed. YouTube And when defense attorneys tried to do it themselves, Coakley's office blocked their efforts. ", But another co-worker was suspicious, particularly since he "never saw Dookhan in front of a microscope.". Join us. Penate alleged Kaczmarek's actions violated his "Brady rights," which require prosecutors to turn over potentially exculpatory evidence to defense counsel. ", Prosecutors maintained that Faraks rogue behavior spanned just a few months. It didnt matter whether or not she was the one who did the testing or some other chemist. Gov. 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.
A Compelling New Take on a Massachusetts Lab Scandal Tainting Thousands 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 evidence to cover up her tracks. 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. "As the gatekeeper to this evidence, she failed to turn over documents, and she adamantly opposed the requests for access. Still, the state was acquiring evidence. 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.". Ryan then filed a
GBH News Center for Investigative Reporting. Kaczmarek was now juggling two scandals on opposite sides of the state. They say court records and newly released emails show prosecutors sat on evidence they were familiar with that pointed to Faraks drug use in 2011, when she worked on Penates case. A. shipped nearly 300 pages of previously undisclosed materials to local prosecutors around the state. "It was almost like Dookhan wanted to get caught," one of her former co-workers told state police in 2012. In an August 2013 email, Ryan asked Assistant Attorney General Kris Foster to review evidence taken from Farak. Farak. Over the next four years, Farak consumed nearly all of it. She said, It was about coping; it certainly wasnt about having fun; I dont think shes had fun in quite a while.. Coakley's office finally launched a criminal investigation in July 2012, more than a year after the infraction was discovered by Dookhan's supervisors.
High Mass. Lab Chemist Causes Over 24,000 Drug Charges To Be Dismissed 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. 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.". Most of the heat for thisincluding formal bar complaintshas fallen on Kaczmarek and another former prosecutor, Kris Foster, who was tasked with responding to subpoenas regarding the Farak evidence. Release year: 2020. Farak signed a certification of drug samples in Penate's case on Dec. 22, 2011. 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! Her job consisted of testing drugs that have. 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. Among the papers they seized were handwritten worksheets Farak completed for drug-abuse therapy. Many more are likely to follow, with the total expected to exceed 50,000.
Discipline recommended for former assistant attorneys - Masslive The case of Rolando Penate has become a leading example for lawyers calling for further investigation into alleged misconduct by prosecutors who handled documents seized from Sonja Farak, the Amherst crime-lab chemist convicted of stealing and tampering with drug samples. Who is Sonja Farak? Since then, she has kept a low profile. "he didn't request a warrant. Despite clear indications that Farak used a variety of narcoticsher worksheets mentioned phentermine, and that vial of powdered oxycodone-acetaminophen had been found at her benchKaczmarek also proceeded as if crack cocaine were Farak's sole drug. (Conveniently, they also found a Patriots schedule from 2011 in the car.). 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. a certification of drug samples in Penates case on Dec. 22, 2011. Given the account that Farak was a law-abiding citizen, it is questioned as to how an | Kaczmarek argued the findings are subject to appeal. In November 2013, Dookhan pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice, tampering with evidence, and perjury. She played as the starting guard for Portsmouth High Schools freshman team. She's no longer in prison, as Farak has served her sentence. You can try, Suspensions and a reprimand proposed for prosecutors admonished in drug lab scandal. TherapyNotes.
How to Fix a Drug Scandal: behind a staggering Netflix crime docuseries Shortly into her role at Amherst, Farak decided to try liquid methamphetamine to ease her personal struggles.
Widening scandal at state drug lab in Mass. exposes opportunities for Sonja Farak stole, ingested or manufactured drugs almost every day for eight years while working as a chemist at a state lab in Amherst, Massachusetts. The criminal prosecution wasn't the only investigation of the Dookhan scandal. But she worried they might be privileged as health information. "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.
TherapyNotes Hearing Officer Finds Misconduct Against Former Drug Lab Prosecutors - WBUR