Sonja Farak is in the grip of a rubbed-raw depression that hasn't responded to medication. In worksheet notes dated Thursday, Dec. 22, Farak NORTHAMPTON Sonja J. Farak told a nurse at the Western Massachusetts 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. 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. Compromised drug samples often fit the definition. 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. Coakley did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story. Verner, who testified that he didn't "micromanage" Kaczmarek, escaped criticism. A drug chemist . Sonja Farak exposed - full extent of her drug use and where she is now The cocaine, found in an unsealed, completed drug-testing kit, tested negativemeaning Farak had seemingly replaced the formerly "positive" drugs with falsified substances. Ryan then filed a 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. After her arrest, she received support from her parents, who showed up to her court appearances, the Daily Hampshire Gazette reported. 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. Its no big deal, 14-year-old Farak said to the Panama City News Herald. 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. After serving for 13 months, she was released on parole in 2015. The information showed that Farak sought therapy for drug addiction and that her misconduct had been ongoing for years. In worksheet notes dated Thursday, Dec. 22, Farak wrote she "tried to resist using @ work, but ended up failing." Although the year she wrote the notes wasn't listed . Farak was getting high off the confiscated drugs police sent her way before replacing the evidence with fake drugs. Thank you! Together, we can create a more connected and informed world. 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. And then the bigger investigation was going to be someone else.". Follow us so you don't miss a thing! Shawn Musgrave is a reporter who was until recently based in Boston. How to Fix a Drug Scandal: With Shannon O'Neill, Karl Kenzler, Paul Solotaroff, Scott Allen. 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. Sonja Farak | MA Drug Lab Scandals - GitHub Pages Rollins said it covers "a period of time in which either now disgraced chemist Annie Dookhan, or another convicted chemist Sonja Farak ," worked there. Farak apparently still tested each caseunlike Annie Dookhan, another Massachusetts chemist who was arrested five months prior to Farak for fabricating test results. But a crucial issue was not before the court. (Netflix) A former state chemist, Sonja Farak, made headlines in 2013 when she was arrested for stealing and using drugs from a laboratory. 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. 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. PDF United States Court of Appeals 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.". "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.". Who Are Sonja Farak and Annie Dookhan? How to Fix a Drug Scandal True Story Sonja Farak: Defendant Rafael Rodriguez died of drug overdose - MEAWW 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. Sonja Farak Today: Where Is She Now? | Heavy.com At the time of Penates trial, the state Attorney Generals Office contended Faraks misdeeds dated back only as far as 2012. Despite being a star child of the family, Sonja suffered from the mental illnesses that haunted her even in adulthood. Farak trabaj en el laboratorio Amherst desde el verano de 2004 y poco despus comenz a tomar las drogas del laboratorio. Terms Of Use, (Annie Dookhan (left) and Sonja Farak, Associated Press). Mucha gente que vio el programa se pregunta: dnde est Sonja Farak ahora? Because she did so, Plaintiff served more than five years in a state prison.". She couldn't be sure which cases these were, Dookhan told investigators. And when the tests she did run came back negative, Dookhan added controlled substances to the vials. The hotline is open Monday through Friday, from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. 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. 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. 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. This was not true, as Nassif's department later conceded. Report shows more than 24k wrongful convictions dismissed in drug lab She had unrestricted access to the evidence room. 3.3.2023 5:30 PM, Joe Lancaster Martha Coakley, then attorney general for the state, argued in Melendez-Diaz that a chemist's certificate contains only "neutral, objective facts." The place was closed as soon as Faraks crimes came to light. That motion was denied, and the notice letters will explain Farak's tampering without any mention of prosecutorial misconduct. In her initial police interview, given at her dining room table, Dookhan said she "would never falsify" results "because it's someone's life on the line." "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. 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. Two Massachusetts drug lab technicians Sonja Farak and Annie Dookhan were caught tainting evidence in separate drug labs in different but equally shocking ways. Who Is Sonja Farak From Netflix Docu-Series How To Fix A Drug Scandal In November 2013, Dookhan pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice, tampering with evidence, and perjury. A local prosecutor also asked Ballou to look into a case Farak had tested as far back as 2005. Sonja Farak, a chemist with a longterm mental health struggle, is the catalyst of the story, but it doesn't end with her. Farak admitted to being on a list of drugs while working between 2004 and her 2013 arrest. 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. As Kaczmarek herself later observed, Farak essentially had "a drugstore at her disposal" from her first day at the Amherst lab. She tried to kill herself in high school, according to Rolling Stone. Faraks wife had her own mental health problems, and according to Rolling Stone, Farak would have conflict with her wife every night at home. Kaczmarek also oversaw the prosecution for the attorney general's office in that case. 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. Sonja Farak Cracked Out - Rough Diplomacy | Farak started at Amherst lab in Aug 2004 p. 32. Her wrongdoings were exposed when unsealed cocaine and a crack pipe were found under her desk. This is merely a fishing expedition, Foster wrote in During the next four years, she would periodically sober up and then relapse. High Massachusetts Lab Chemist Causes Thousands Of Drug Cases To Be Dismissed. Dookhan was now spending less time at her lab bench and more time testifying in court about her results. It included information about the type of drugs she tampered with. 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. Join half a million readers enjoying Newsweek's free newsletters, Sonja Farak is the subject of Netflix's "How To Fix a Drug Scandal. "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. Drug lab cases information | Mass.gov A scandal erupts, raising questions for the thousands of defendants in her cases. 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. She was ar-rested for tampering with evidence while abusing narcotics at work.
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