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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. A scandal erupts, raising questions for the thousands of defendants in her cases. The former judges and the state police officers who helped them conducted a thorough review, said Emalie Gainey, spokeswoman for Attorney General Maura Healey. Farak was released from prison in 2015 and has kept a low profile since. 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. 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. 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 . 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. 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. Shortly into her role at Amherst, Farak decided to try liquid methamphetamine to ease her personal struggles. The court also dismissed all meth cases processed at the lab since Farak started in 2004. Because she did so, Plaintiff served more than five years in a state prison.". 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. Faraks notes also That settlement awaits approval by a judge. 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. Sonja Farak in How to Fix a Drug Scandal. Farak struggled with mental health throughout her life, the documentary series explains. Kaczmarek got a note from Sgt. In Farak's car, police found a "works kit"crack cocaine, a spatula, and copper mesh, often used as a pipe filter. 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. 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. In an August 2013 email, Ryan asked Assistant Attorney General Kris Foster to review evidence taken from Farak. In worksheet notes dated Thursday, Dec. 22, Farak In a March 2013 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. Farak worked for the Amherst Drug Lab in Massachusetts for 9 years when she was convicted of stealing and using them. 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. 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.". 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. Who is Sonja Farak? She received the American Institute of Chemists Award in her final year as well as a Crimson and Gray Award from the school a year before, which recognized her dedication, commitment and unselfishness in the enrichment of student life at WPI. A Rolling Stone piece on Farak also indicated that she graduated with high distinction from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute. How to Fix a Drug Scandal is an American true crime documentary miniseries that was released on Netflix on April 1, 2020. Kaczmarek was now juggling two scandals on opposite sides of the state. Reporting for this story was supported by the Fund for Investigative Journalism. 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." In court, she added that there was "no smoking gun" in the evidence. Meier put the number at 40,323 defendants, though some have called that an overestimate. denied Penates motion to dismiss the case, saying there was no evidence that Faraks misconduct extended to his case. "he didn't request a warrant. In the aftermath, the court felt it necessary to make clear that "no prosecutorhas the authority to decline to disclose exculpatory information.". Between Farak and Dookhanwho's also featured in How to Fix a Drug Scandal38,000 wrongfully convicted cases have been dismissed, according to the Washington Post. | 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. 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. She was arrested in 2013 when the supervisor at the Amherst lab was made aware that two samples were missing. Lets find out. Here are those forms with the admissions of drug use I was talking about," a state police sergeant wrote to Assistant Attorney General Anne Kaczmarek, who led Faraks prosecution, in a "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.". 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. When grand jury materials were eventually released to defense attorneys, then, they did not mention that these documents existed. She tried to kill herself in high school, according to Rolling Stone. A federal judge has rejected claims from an embattled former state prosecutor that she is protected from liability in the fallout over a Massachusetts drug lab scandal. Even the master's degree on her rsum was fabricated. Foster consulted Kaczmarek about the files contents, according to an 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. 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. We were unable to subscribe you to WBUR Today. Because of all that, it's no surprise that Farak was sent to prison in Massachusetts. Per her own court testimony, as shown in the docu-series, Farak started working at a state drug lab in Amherst in 2004. In December 2011, after police in Springfield, Mass., had arrested Renaldo Penate for allegedly selling heroin, the drugs from that case were tested at a state drug lab by technician Sonja Farak. Deval Patrick's office didn't learn about the protocol breach until December 2011. When a Therapy Session starts, the software automatically creates a To-Do list item reminding users to create the relevant documentation. Scalia may as well have been describing Dookhan. Because state prosecutors hid Farak's substance abuse diaries, it took far too long for the full timeline of her crimes to become public. One was clearly dated November 16, 2011a year and two months before her arrest. 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. On a Friday afternoon in January 2013, a call came in to Coakley's office: "We have another Annie Dookhan out west.". 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. 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. ", Prosecutors nationwide pretty uniformly backed this argument, which the Supreme Court rejected in a 54 opinion. But she insisted the drugs didn't compromise her worka belief that one judge would aptly declare "belies logic.". The Amherst lab had called state police when the two missing samples were noticed in 2013. The lawsuit names Kaczmarek, Farak and three members of the state police. "All Defendant had to do to honor the Plaintiffs Brady rights was to turn over copies of documents that were obviously exculpatory as to the Farak defendants or accede to one of the repeated requests from counsel, including Plaintiffs counsel, that they be permitted to inspect the evidence seized from Faraks car," Robertson wrote in her ruling. 2. The Farak documents indicate she used drugs on the very day she certified samples as heroin in Penates case. Instead, Kaczmarek proceeded as if the substance abuse was a recent development. Farak. 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. 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. She started smoking crack cocaine in 2011 and was soon using it 10 to 12 times a day. The governor also tapped a local attorney, David Meier, to count how many individuals' cases might be tainted. | She's no longer in prison, as Farak has served her sentence. ", Everyone Practices Cancel Culture | Opinion, Deplatforming Free Speech is Dangerous | Opinion. The drug lab technician was sent to prison for 18 months, but was released in 2015. Investigators found that Sonja Farak tested drug samples and testified in court while under the influence of methamphetamines, ketamine, cocaine, LSD and other drugs between 2005 and 2013. Foster said that Kaczmarek told her all relevant evidence had been turned over and that her supervisor told her to write the letter, though both denied these claims. At the time of her arrest, she had resided in 37 Laurel Park in Northampton. Approximately one year later, she pled guilty to tampering with evidence, unlawful possession, and stealing narcotics. Kaczmarek had obtained the evidence at issue while she was prosecuting Farak on state charges of tampering with evidence and drug possession. Having barely investigated her, prosecutors indicted Farak only for the samples in her possession the day she was caught. High Massachusetts Lab Chemist Causes Thousands Of Drug Cases To Be Dismissed. "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. May 2003 started working in Hinton drug lab p. 14. Grand Jury Transcript - Sonja Farak - September 16, 2015 Contributed by Shawn Musgrave (Musgrave Investigations) p. 1. 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. Tens of thousands of criminal drug cases were dismissed as a result of misconduct by Dookhan and Farak. 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. The lax security and regulations of the place and the negligent supervision of the employees and the stock of standards are the reasons why Farak was encouraged to do what she did. He didn't buy her quibbling that there's a difference between an explicit lie and obfuscation by grammar. "Forensic evidence is not uniquely immune from the risk of manipulation," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority. But a crucial issue was not before the court. 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. February 2013 email, to which he attached the worksheets. But she worried they might be privileged as health information. another filing. 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. Instead, she submitted an intentionally vague letter to the judge claiming defense attorneys already had everything. She later called this dismissive exchange a "plea to God.". Privacy Policy | 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. You can check your records electronically by following this link: https://icori.chs.state.ma.us. The attorney general's representative at these hearings was Assistant Attorney General Kris Foster, a recent hire. On paper, these numbers made Dookhan the most productive chemist at Hinton; the next most productive averaged around 300 samples per month. 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. She was also testifying in court while high. A hearing on their motions is scheduled next month. Among the papers they seized were handwritten worksheets Farak completed for drug-abuse therapy. Joseph Ballou, lead investigator for the state police, called them the most important documents from the car. Farak received a sentence of 18 months in jail and 5 years of probation. Farak apparently still tested each caseunlike Annie Dookhan, another Massachusetts chemist who was arrested five months prior to Farak for fabricating test results. Fue arrestada el 19 de enero de 2013. Foster, now general counsel at the Massachusetts Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission, and Kaczmarek, now a clerk magistrate in Suffolk Superior Court, declined to comment for this story. Maybe it's not a matter of checklists or reminders that prosecutors have to keep their eyes open for improprieties. Would love your thoughts, please comment. This not only led to people getting a reprieve from prison but also filing their own lawsuits against the injustice they had to suffer. 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. Powered by WordPress.com VIP. After serving for 13 months, she was released on parole in 2015. Chemist Sonja Farak pleaded guilty to "tampering with evidence" back in 2014 and was sentenced to 18 months in prison. 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. Kaczmarek is one of three former prosecutors whose role in the prosecution of Farak later became the focus of several lawsuits and disciplinary hearings. Episode 2. Sonja Farak worked as a chemist for the state of Massachusetts, specializing in identifying illegal substances. A status hearing on Penate's suit, which was filed in 2017, is scheduled for July. The hotline is open Monday through Friday, from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. On top of that, it was also ensured that no analyst would ever work without supervision. The Hinton drug lab, operated by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, appears to have been run largely on the honor system. The story of the intertwining Farak and Penate evidence began in January 2013, when state police arrested Farak and searched her car. But whether anyone investigated her conduct during a brief stint working at the state's Boston drug lab is at . 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! Subscribe to Reason Roundup, a wrap up of the last 24 hours of news, delivered fresh each morning. 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.". Sonja Farak was a chemist at a state drug lab in Amherst, Massachusetts, from 2005 to 2013. 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. Its unclear if Farak is still with Lee, as they have both remained out of the public eye since the case. As federal food benefits decline, Mass. He also 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. Introduction. Sonja Farak had admitted to stealing and using drugs from the drug lab where she worked as a chemist for around 9 years. Among other items, Kaczmarek I felt euphoric, Kogan wrote of Farak. "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. In the only quasi-independent probe of the Farak scandal ever ordered, Attorney General Healey and a district attorney appointed two retired judges to investigate in summer 2015. They tend to be more freeform notes about the session and your impressions of the client's statements and demeanour. Before her sentencing, Farak failed a drug test while out on bail, according to Mass Live. The court decided to uphold a ruling dismissing charges against the defendant, a juvenile at the time of the alleged offense identified only as Washington W. The justices didnt name his prosecutor, David Omiunu, who was identified by The Eye from other court records. The judge ordered prosecutors and defense attorneys to coordinate on identifying undisclosed emails related to documents seized from the disgraced state crime lab chemist. 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. 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. In 2019, the chemist was spotted at federal court in Springfield, MA , attending a civil case. As a teenager, she had attempted suicide. 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. 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. The number is 888-999-2881. Farak as a young. 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. 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. It declined Farak's offer of a detailed confession in exchange for leniency, nixing the offer without even negotiating terms. They wrote that Lee, disabled by a stew of mental ailments, [spent] her hours surfing the Web in a haze.. Despite being a star child of the family, Sonja suffered from the mental illnesses that haunted her even in adulthood. But Ryan, who represented Penate, suspected it was more extensive. 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. The place was closed as soon as Faraks crimes came to light. Gov. Farak was arrested the next day, and the attorney general's office assigned the case to Anne Kaczmarek. 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. chemist, Sonja Farak, had been battling drug addiction and had tampered with samples she was assigned to test around the time she tested the samples in Penate's case. Hearings could help decide how many of thousands of convictions tainted by Farak's testing may be overturned. 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. 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. The next month, Ryan asked again. One colleague called her the "super woman of the lab. She was ar-rested for tampering with evidence while abusing narcotics at work. Kaczmarek, along with former assistant attorneys general Kris Foster and John Verner, all face possible sanctions. Dookhan had seeded public mistrust in the criminal justice system, which "now becomes an issue in every criminal trial for every defendant.". She is not active on any social media platform and has kept her distance from the press. 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. A final decision is still pending and must be approved by the state Supreme Judicial Court. Yet Dookhan's brazen crimes went undetected for ages. Prosecutors have an obligation to give the defense exculpatory evidence including anything that could weaken evidence against defendants. "It would be difficult to overstate the significance of these documents," Ryan wrote to the attorney general's office. 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. A judge sentenced Dookhan to three years in prison; she was granted parole in April 2016. Sonja Farak is at the center of Netflix's new true crime docuseries, How To Fix a Drug Scandal. Thus, only defendants whose evidence she tested in the six-month window before her arrest could challenge their cases. In 2009, Farak branched out to the lab's amphetamine, phentermine, and cocaine standards. Both have since left the attorney general's office for other government positions. GBH News Center for Investigative Reporting. 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. He emailed them to Kaczmareksubject: "FARAK Admissions." It was an astoundingly light touch for the second state chemist arrested in six months. Support GBH. 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. She was also under the influence when she took the stand during her trial. 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. 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. After she was caught, Farak pleaded guilty to stealing drugs from the lab and was sentenced to prison time of 18 months. She played as the starting guard for Portsmouth High Schools freshman team. Kaczmarek also oversaw the prosecution for the attorney general's office in that case. | She soon crossed all these lines. And then the bigger investigation was going to be someone else.". 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. Penate alleged Kaczmarek's actions violated his "Brady rights," which require prosecutors to turn over potentially exculpatory evidence to defense counsel. The defense bar also demanded answers on how such crucial evidence stayed buried for so long. Kaczmarek wrote back. concluded there was no evidence of prosecutorial misconduct or obstruction of justice in matters related to the Farak case. shipped nearly 300 pages of previously undisclosed materials to local prosecutors around the state. 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.". Powered by. The new numbers appear in a report issued by a court-designated "Special Master." The cocaine, found in an unsealed, completed drug-testing kit, tested negativemeaning Farak had seemingly replaced the formerly "positive" drugs with falsified substances.