TherapyNotes is a complete practice management system with everything you need to manage patient records, schedule appointments, meet with patients remotely, create rich documentation, and bill insurance, right at your fingertips. "These drugswere tested fairly," Coakley claimed the day after Farak's arrest. Judge Kinder ordered her to produce all potentially privileged documents for his review to determine whether they could be disclosed. Who is Sonja Farak? "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. 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. If Farak found a substance was a true drug, the person it was confiscated from could be convicted of a substance-related crime. 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 Netflix docuseries ends by acknowledging that Farak received an 18-month sentence, and that defense attorney Luke Ryan was able . TherapyNotes. Even the master's degree on her rsum was fabricated. She even made her own crack in the lab. Sonja Farak worked as a chemist for the state of Massachusetts, specializing in identifying illegal substances. 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 . And yet, despite explicit requests for this kind of evidence, 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. Sonja Farak pleaded guilty to stealing samples of drugs from an Amherst drug lab. She played as the starting guard for Portsmouth High Schools freshman team. She later called this dismissive exchange a "plea to God.". Fue arrestada el 19 de enero de 2013. And both pose the obvious question about how chemists could behave so badly for years without detection. But she insisted the drugs didn't compromise her worka belief that one judge would aptly declare "belies logic.". In a rare move, the judicial office that brings disciplinary cases against lawyers in Massachusetts has accused a prosecutor of professional misconduct, including allegations that she failed to share critical information with defense lawyers and attempted to interfere with defense witnesses. Coakley assigned the case against Dookhan to Assistant Attorney General Anne Kaczmarek and her supervisor, John Verner. Powered by. She was also under the influence when she took the stand during her trial. We were unable to subscribe you to WBUR Today. The number is 888-999-2881. Thus, only defendants whose evidence she tested in the six-month window before her arrest could challenge their cases. "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.". Sonja Farak had admitted to stealing and using drugs from the drug lab where she worked as a chemist for around 9 years. As extensively detailed in How to Fix a Drug Scandal, Farak was arrested on January 19, 2013. She was released in 2015, as reported by Mass Live. Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility at GBH, Transparency in Coverage Cost-Sharing Disclosures. 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. That settlement awaits approval by a judge. 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.". Kaczmarek, along with former assistant attorneys general Kris Foster and John Verner, all face possible sanctions. The story of the intertwining Farak and Penate evidence began in January 2013, when state police arrested Farak and searched her car. Sonja Farak, a state forensic chemist in western Massachusetts, was minutes away from testifying in a drug case in early 2013 when attorneys learned she was about to be arrested on charges of. 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. The worksheets, essentially counseling notes, showed that Farak had been using drugs often on the job for much longer than the attorney general's office had claimed. In 2012, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court foundegregious prosecutorial misconduct after an assistant district attorney withheldevidence a judge had ordered him toproduce for the defense of a teenageraccused of statutory rape. On top of that, it was also ensured that no analyst would ever work without supervision. They were all rendered unacceptable. From the April 2023 issue, Billy Binion Grand Jury Transcript - Sonja Farak - September 16, 2015. Out of "an abundance of caution," Kaczmarek didn't present them to the grand jury that was convened to determine whether to indict Farak. 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. 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 . As a teenager, she had attempted suicide. The scandal led. Foster In the aftermath, the court felt it necessary to make clear that "no prosecutorhas the authority to decline to disclose exculpatory information.". Local prosecutors also remained in the dark. Penate and other defendants are asking see all of Fosters emails regarding Farak and other materials relating to the handling of evidence in the chemist's case. As he leafed through three boxes of evidence, he found the substance abuse worksheets and diaries. 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. 3.3.2023 5:45 PM, Jacob Sullum 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 . With the Dookhan case so fresh, reporters immediately labeled Farak "the second chemist. A judge sentenced Dookhan to three years in prison; she was granted parole in April 2016. The chemist, Sonja Farak, worked at the Amherst crime . High Massachusetts Lab Chemist Causes Thousands Of Drug Cases To Be Dismissed. motion with Hampden Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Kinder to see the evidence for himself. 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. They wrote that Lee, disabled by a stew of mental ailments, [spent] her hours surfing the Web in a haze.. 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. Per her own court testimony, as shown in the docu-series, Farak started working at a state drug lab in Amherst in 2004. The lead prosecutor on Farak's case knew about the diaries, as did supervisors at the state attorney general's office. After high school, Sonja went on to major in biochemistry at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in western Massachusetts. 3.4.2023 8:00 AM, Reason Staff 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. A second unsealed report into allegations of wrongdoing by police and prosecutors who handled the Farak evidence, overseen by retired state judges Peter Velis and Thomas Merrigan, drew less attention. 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. 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. Since the takeover, the budget for all forensic labs across the state has been increased, by around twenty-five per cent. Kaczmarek argued the findings are subject to appeal. 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. 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. Terms Of Use, (Annie Dookhan (left) and Sonja Farak, Associated Press). Joseph Ballou, lead investigator for the state police, called them the most important documents from the car. 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. Farak received a sentence of 18 months in jail and 5 years of probation. Nassif put Dookhan on desk duty but allowed her to finish testing cases already on her plate, including some of the samples she had taken from the locker. It declined Farak's offer of a detailed confession in exchange for leniency, nixing the offer without even negotiating terms. There were also newspaper articles about other officials caught stealing drugs, including one with a scribbled note, "Thank god I'm not a law enforcement officer." She was struggling to suppress mental health issues, depression in particular, and she tried to kill herself in high school, according to Rolling Stone. Defense attorneys had. There is no allegation of misconduct against the local prosecutors who presented the case against Penate in Hampden County Superior Court. In November 2013, Dookhan pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice, tampering with evidence, and perjury. Her reporting focuses on mental health, criminal justice and education. Soon after, the state police took over the control, and the lab was moved to Springfield, where it remains under the supervision of the state police. El 6 de enero de 2014, Farak se declar culpable de los cargos en su contra. Gov. Deborah Becker Twitter Host/ReporterDeborah Becker is a senior correspondent and host at WBUR. Follow us so you don't miss a thing! This was not true, as Nassif's department later conceded. But without access to evidence showing how long Farak had been doing this, defendants with constitutional grounds for challenging their incarceration were held for months and even years longer than necessary. Looking back, it seems that Massachusetts law enforcement officials, reeling from the Dookhan case, simply felt they couldn't weather another full-fledged forensics scandal. Farak admitted in testimony that she began using drugs almost as soon as she started working at the Massachusetts State Crime Lab in Amherst. The governor didn't appoint the inspector general or anyone else to determine how long Farak was altering samples or running analyses while high. While Dookhan had tampered with evidence and indulged in dry-labbing, Farak stole from her workplace. February 2013 email, to which he attached the worksheets. Two Massachusetts drug lab technicians Sonja Farak and Annie Dookhan were caught tainting evidence in separate drug labs in different but equally shocking ways. "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.". The drug lab technician was sent to prison for 18 months, but was released in 2015. She grew up in Portsmouth with her sister Amy. Kaczmarek had obtained the evidence at issue while she was prosecuting Farak on state charges of tampering with evidence and drug possession. As the state's top court put it, the criminal investigation into Farak was "cursory at best.". Her access to evidence was not restricted, and she continued testifying in court. Yet Dookhan's brazen crimes went undetected for ages. Exhausted from the ongoing scandal in Boston, state officials were desperate for damage control. 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. 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. The Attorney Generals Office, Velis and Merrigan and the state police declined to answer questions about the handling of the Farak evidence. At least 11,000 cases have already been dismissed due to fallout from the scandal, with thousands more likely to come. She had unrestricted access to the evidence room. 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. Talking Politics: Should a new government agency protect the coastline from climate change? food banks expect a surge, As streaming services boom, cable TV continues its decline. Though. On a Friday afternoon in January 2013, a call came in to Coakley's office: "We have another Annie Dookhan out west.". May 2003 started working in Hinton drug lab p. 14. The chemist, Sonja Farak, worked at the state drug lab in Amherst, Massachusetts, for more than eight years. Since her release, she has kept a low profile and managed to stay out of the public . The medical records stated that she did not have an existing drug problem that was amplified by her access to more substances. Penate was convicted in December 2013 and sentenced to serve five to seven years. 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. "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. Penate argued the court should follow those findings. 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. Like Hinton, the Amherst lab had no cameras. After contemplating another suicide, she settled on drugs, and the fact that she had such easy access to it at her workplace made it easier for her to get lost in that world. Deval Patrick's office didn't learn about the protocol breach until December 2011. She started smoking crack cocaine in 2011 and was soon using it 10 to 12 times a day. Release year: 2020. In addition to ordering the dismissal of many thousands of cases, the Supreme Judicial Court directed a committee to draft a "checklist" for prosecutors, clarifying their obligation to turn over evidence to defendants. Where Is Sonja Farak Now? In June 2011, Dookhan secretly took 90 samples out of an evidence locker and then forged a co-worker's initials to check them back in, a clear chain-of-custody breach. The last contact information provided by her, in response to Penates allegations, placed her residence in Hatfield, Massachusetts. She was arrested in 2013 when the supervisor at the Amherst lab was made aware that two samples were missing. "It would be difficult to overstate the significance of these documents," Ryan wrote to the attorney general's office. This very well could have been the end of the investigative trail but for a few stubborn defense lawyers, who appealed the ruling. Approximately one year later, she pled guilty to tampering with evidence, unlawful possession, and stealing narcotics. Her ar-rest led to the dismissal of thousands of drug cases in Massachusetts. Cleverly omitting pronouns, she wrote that "after reviewing" the file, "every documenthas been disclosed." Kaczmarek also oversaw the prosecution for the attorney general's office in that case. 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. A drug chemist . The state and attorneys for some of the defendants agreed to a $14 million settlement to reimburse 31,000 defendants for post conviction-related costs, such as probation and parole fees, drug analysis and GPS monitoring. 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. noted the mental health worksheets found in Faraks car, which had not been released. Martha Coakley, then attorney general for the state, argued in Melendez-Diaz that a chemist's certificate contains only "neutral, objective facts." Perhaps, as criminal justice scandals inevitably emerge, we need to get more independent eyes on the evidence from the start. She said, It was about coping; it certainly wasnt about having fun; I dont think shes had fun in quite a while.. Two weeks after Ryans discovery, the Attorney Generals Office On the surface, their crimes dont seem as injurious and they dont seem to enjoy inflicting pain on others. She was sentenced in 2014 to 18 months in prison and 5 years of probation. Introduction. ", Officials rushed to downplay the situation in Amherst. At the time of Penates trial, the state Attorney Generals Office contended Faraks misdeeds dated back only as far as 2012. The defense bar also demanded answers on how such crucial evidence stayed buried for so long. Farak as a young. Over time, Farak's drug use turned to cocaine, LSD and, eventually, crack. His is one of what lawyers say could be thousands of convictions questioned in the wake of the Farak scandal. concluded there was no evidence of prosecutorial misconduct or obstruction of justice in matters related to the Farak case. Faraks notes also "If she were suffering from back injurymaybe she took some oxys?" As Solotaroff recounts in detail, Massachusetts attorney Luke Ryan represented two people who were accused of drug charges that Farak had analyzed . "As the gatekeeper to this evidence, she failed to turn over documents, and she adamantly opposed the requests for access. Because of all that, it's no surprise that Farak was sent to prison in Massachusetts. "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. Having barely investigated her, prosecutors indicted Farak only for the samples in her possession the day she was caught. ", Prosecutors maintained that Faraks rogue behavior spanned just a few months. 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. 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. You can check your records electronically by following this link: https://icori.chs.state.ma.us. Coakley's office finally launched a criminal investigation in July 2012, more than a year after the infraction was discovered by Dookhan's supervisors. 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. concluded she was usually high while working in the lab for more than eight years before her arrest in January 2013 and started stealing samples seven years ago. | What Did Sonja Farak Do, Exactly? Lost in the high drama of determining which individual prosecutors hid evidence was a more basic question: In scandals like these, why are decisions about evidence left to prosecutors at all? Sonja Farak. Both have since left the attorney general's office for other government positions. Join us. "Annie Dookhan's alleged actions corrupted the integrity of the criminal justice system, and there are many victims as a result of this," Coakley said at a press conference. Two detectives found Farak at a courthouse waiting to testify on an unrelated matter. The twin Massachusetts drug lab scandals are unprecedented in the sheer number of cases thrown out because of forensic misconduct. Farak saw Kogan in 2009 and 2010, and her therapist wrote: She obtains the drugs from her job at the state drug lab, by taking portions of samples that have come in to be tested., Kogan also wrote that Farak told her she had taken methamphetamines at another lab in an old job, but she didnt get much from it. Kogan wrote that after moving to western [Massachusetts] for her job at the state drug lab, [Farak] tried it again and really liked it. "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. How to Fix a Drug Scandal is an American true crime documentary miniseries that was released on Netflix on April 1, 2020. Ryan finally viewed the file in the attorney generals offices in October 2014. "I was totally controlled by my addiction," Farak later testified. 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. Damning evidence reveals drug lab chemist Sonja Farak's addictions. During the next four years, she would periodically sober up and then relapse. Among the papers they seized were handwritten worksheets Farak completed for drug-abuse therapy. 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. 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." 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.. One of the reasons for the decrepit state and standard of the Amherst lab was the lack of funds. Foster and another assistant attorney general assented to that motion. ", The chemist, Sonja Farak, worked at the state drug lab in Amherst, Massachusetts, for more than eight years. It's been like this forever, or at least since girlhood. Farak worked under the influence of drugs for nine years - from 2004 to 2013 - before she was caught. Still, the state was acquiring evidence. She was ar-rested for tampering with evidence while abusing narcotics at work. 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. In worksheet notes dated Thursday, Dec. 22, Farak For people with disabilities needing assistance with the Public Files, contact Glenn Heath at 617-300-3268. Netflixs How to Fix a Drug Scandal Story: 5 Fast Facts. 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. They tend to be more freeform notes about the session and your impressions of the client's statements and demeanour. She was sentenced to 18 months in jail plus five years of probation. Foster consulted Kaczmarek about the files contents, according to an Thank you! After graduating from Portsmouth High School, Farak attended the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where she got a bachelor of science degree in biochemistry in 2000. 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. (Conveniently, they also found a Patriots schedule from 2011 in the car.). 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. . 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. denied Penates motion to dismiss the case, saying there was no evidence that Faraks misconduct extended to his case. 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. Foster protested that portions of the evidentiary file in question might be privileged or not subject to disclosure. But unlike with Dookhan, no one launched a bigger investigation of Farak. Each employee had a unique swipe card, but Farak simply used a physical key to get in after hours and on weekends. Where is Sonja now? This might not have mattered as much if the investigators had followed the evidence that Farak had been using drugs for at least a year and almost certainly longer. How to Fix a Drug Scandal: With Shannon O'Neill, Karl Kenzler, Paul Solotaroff, Scott Allen. She had been accused of intentional infliction of emotional distress in addition to the conspiracy to violate [Penates] civil rights.. Nassif considered it a lapse in judgment, but not a disqualifying one; Nassif's boss didn't think it necessary to alert the prosecutors whose cases relied on the samples, much less the defendants. That motion was denied, and the notice letters will explain Farak's tampering without any mention of prosecutorial misconduct. 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. Farak signed a certification of drug samples in Penate's case on Dec. 22, 2011. 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. But why were a small handful of prosecutors allowed total control over evidence about one of the worst criminal justice failures in recent memory? 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 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. This is merely a fishing expedition, Foster wrote in After her arrest, she received support from her parents, who showed up to her court appearances, the Daily Hampshire Gazette reported. Kaczmarek was now juggling two scandals on opposite sides of the state. A status hearing on Penate's suit, which was filed in 2017, is scheduled for July. The cocaine, found in an unsealed, completed drug-testing kit, tested negativemeaning Farak had seemingly replaced the formerly "positive" drugs with falsified substances. answered that the state considered the evidence irrelevant to any case other than Faraks.. He emailed them to Kaczmareksubject: "FARAK Admissions." Listen Live: Classic and Contemporary Celtic, Listen Live: Cape, Coast and Islands NPR Station, Boston nonprofit Street2Ivy is producing this generation's entrepreneurs. Among other items, Kaczmarek Farak apparently still tested each caseunlike Annie Dookhan, another Massachusetts chemist who was arrested five months prior to Farak for fabricating test results. ", Prosecutors nationwide pretty uniformly backed this argument, which the Supreme Court rejected in a 54 opinion. 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.
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