Support GBH. Who is Sonja Farak, the former state drug lab chemist featured in the show? 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.". Its no big deal, 14-year-old Farak said to the Panama City News Herald. Ryan finally viewed the file in the attorney generals offices in October 2014. Shawn Musgrave is a reporter who was until recently based in Boston. 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. 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. "No reasonablejury could conclude that this evidence is not favorable.". And then the bigger investigation was going to be someone else.". As . A judge sentenced Dookhan to three years in prison; she was granted parole in April 2016. Reporting for this story was supported by the Fund for Investigative Journalism. motion with Hampden Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Kinder to see the evidence for himself. "These drugswere tested fairly," Coakley claimed the day after Farak's arrest. Still, the state was acquiring evidence. After serving for 13 months, she was released on parole in 2015. 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." 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. 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. noted the mental health worksheets found in Faraks car, which had not been released. Name. As extensively detailed in How to Fix a Drug Scandal, Farak was arrested on January 19, 2013. She was sentenced in 2014 to 18 months in prison and 5 years of probation. Foster consulted Kaczmarek about the files contents, according to an On the surface, their crimes dont seem as injurious and they dont seem to enjoy inflicting pain on others. It included information about the type of drugs she tampered with. The cocaine, found in an unsealed, completed drug-testing kit, tested negativemeaning Farak had seemingly replaced the formerly "positive" drugs with falsified substances. The hotline is open Monday through Friday, from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. 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. Fortunately, the courts largely ignored this shallow investigation. 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. ordered a report on the history of her illicit behavior. The Board of Bar Overseers (BBO) is reviewing the actions of three prosecutors in the investigation of the scandal to determine whether any of them deliberately withheld potentially exculpatory evidence. 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. As a teenager, she had attempted suicide. Foster replied that because the investigation against Farak was ongoing, she couldnt let him see it. Kaczmarek also oversaw the prosecution for the attorney general's office in that case. 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. Her access to evidence was not restricted, and she continued testifying in court. The lawsuit names Kaczmarek, Farak and three members of the state police. "The mental health worksheets constituted admissions by the state lab chemist assigned to analyze the samples seized in Plaintiffs case that she was stealing and using lab samples to feed a drug addiction at the time she was testing and certifying the samples in Plaintiffs case, including, in one instance, on the very day that she certified a sample," Robertson's ruling reads. Joseph . Two detectives found Farak at a courthouse waiting to testify on an unrelated matter. 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. Kaczmarek argued for qualified immunity after she was sued by Rolando Penate, who spent five years in prison on drug charges in which the evidence in his case was tested by Farak. A drug chemist . Coakley assigned the case against Dookhan to Assistant Attorney General Anne Kaczmarek and her supervisor, John Verner. 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. At some point, the attorney general's office stopped chasing leads entirely. Farak is amongst one of the 18 defendants battling the lawsuit filed by Rolando Penate. Two Massachusetts drug lab technicians Sonja Farak and Annie Dookhan were caught tainting evidence in separate drug labs in different but equally shocking ways. And when the tests she did run came back negative, Dookhan added controlled substances to the vials. Who is Sonja Farak? In worksheet notes dated Thursday, Dec. 22, Farak 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.". 3.3.2023 4:50 PM, 2022 Reason Foundation | 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. (Belchertown, MA, 01/22/13) Sonja Farak, 35, of Northampton, is arraigned in Eastern Hampshire District Court in Belchertown on charges that she stole cocaine and heroin while working as a. 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. On paper, these numbers made Dookhan the most productive chemist at Hinton; the next most productive averaged around 300 samples per month. The attorney general's officeKaczmarek or her supervisorscould have asked a judge to determine whether the worksheets were actually privileged, as Kaczmarek later acknowledged. Former chemist Annie Dookhan was convicted in 2013 on charges of improperly testing drug evidence at a drug lab in Boston. Sonja Farak had admitted to stealing and using drugs from the drug lab where she worked as a chemist for around 9 years. But why were a small handful of prosecutors allowed total control over evidence about one of the worst criminal justice failures in recent memory? 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. During her trial, her defense lawyer Elaine Pourinski said that Farak wasnt taking drugs to party, but instead to control her depression. Stream GBH's Award-Winning Content For Parents And Children. Where is Sonja now? motion on behalf of another client to see the evidence. 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. Prosecutors have an obligation to give the defense exculpatory evidence including anything that could weaken evidence against defendants. He was floored when he found the worksheets. "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. "If she were suffering from back injurymaybe she took some oxys?" Farak admitted to being on a list of drugs while working between 2004 and her 2013 arrest. 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. It was an astoundingly light touch for the second state chemist arrested in six months. Shown results suggesting otherwise, she copped to contaminating samples "a few times" during the previous "two to three years.". 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. 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 When the Farak scandal erupted, that misconduct came into view. Given the account that Farak was a law-abiding citizen, it is questioned as to how an 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 . Grand Jury Transcript - Sonja Farak - September 16, 2015 Contributed by Shawn Musgrave (Musgrave Investigations) p. 1. Fue arrestada el 19 de enero de 2013. Her ar-rest led to the dismissal of thousands of drug cases in Massachusetts. Four months after Ryan found the worksheets, Judge Kinder | They never searched Farak's computer or her home. 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. 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. Read More: Where is Sonja Farak Sister Now? 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. 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. wrote to the Attorney Generals Office two days later. 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 worked as a chemist for the state of Massachusetts, specializing in identifying illegal substances. Sonja Farak, a chemist with a longterm mental health struggle, is the catalyst of the story, but it doesn't end with her. 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. Sonja Farak is in the grip of a rubbed-raw depression that hasn't responded to medication. Judge Kinder ordered her to produce all potentially privileged documents for his review to determine whether they could be disclosed. Kaczmarek, along with former assistant attorneys general Kris Foster and John Verner, all face possible sanctions. Follow us so you don't miss a thing! 1. 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. The Farak documents indicate she used drugs on the very day she certified samples as heroin in Penates case. 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." Several defense attorneys who called for the Velis-Merrigan investigation say the former judges and their state police investigators got it wrong. While Dookhan had tampered with evidence and indulged in dry-labbing, Farak stole from her workplace. Since her release, she has kept a low profile and managed to stay out of the public . Over the next four years, Farak consumed nearly all of it. 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. Farak received a sentence of 18 months in jail and 5 years of probation. After she was caught, Farak pleaded guilty to stealing drugs from the lab and was sentenced to prison time of 18 months. In a letter filed with the Supreme Court, Julianne Nassif, a lab supervisor, wrote that Hinton had "appropriate quality control" measures. Kaczmarek argued the findings are subject to appeal. 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 . Judge Kinder denied Ryans motion. Relying on an investigation conducted by state police, the judges Her job consisted of testing drugs that have. As Solotaroff recounts in detail, Massachusetts attorney Luke Ryan represented two people who were accused of drug charges that Farak had analyzed . Join us. "As the gatekeeper to this evidence, she failed to turn over documents, and she adamantly opposed the requests for access. The chemist, Sonja Farak, worked at the state drug lab in Amherst, Massachusetts, for more than eight years. Scalia may as well have been describing Dookhan. After high school, Sonja went on to major in biochemistry at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in western Massachusetts. 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.". The premise revolves around documentary filmmaker Erin Lee Carr following the effects of crime drug lab chemists Sonja Farak and Annie Dookhan and their tampering with evidence and its aftereffects.. Dookhan was accused of forging reports and tampering with samples to . After graduating from Portsmouth High School, Farak attended the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where she got a bachelor of science degree in biochemistry in 2000. To multiple courts' amazement, her incessant drug use never caught the attention of her co-workers. wrote she "tried to resist using @ work, but ended up failing." After high school, Sonja went on to major in biochemistry at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in western Massachusetts. It's not as bad as Dookhan, they asserted and implied over and over. She married Lee after starting her job, but their marriage was rocky. 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. With your support, GBH will continue to innovate, inspire and connect through reporting you value that meets todays moments. We couldn't do it without you. The charges against Penate were dismissed after Farak's conviction. Faraks notes also Psychotherapy Progress Notes, as shown above, can be populated using clinical codes before they are linked with a client's appointments for easier admin and use in sessions. A scandal erupts, raising questions for the thousands of defendants in her cases. In the eight and a half years she worked at the Hinton State Laboratory in Boston, her supervisors apparently never noticed she certified samples as narcotics without actually testing them, a type of fraud called "dry-labbing." 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. 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. 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. | This article originally appeared in print under the headline "The Chemists and the Cover-Up". Shortly into her role at Amherst, Farak decided to try liquid methamphetamine to ease her personal struggles. 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. Investigators either missed or declined opportunities to dig very deep. GBH News brings you the stories, local voices, and big ideas that shape our world. State prosecutors hadnt provided this evidence to other district attorneys offices contending with the Farak fallout, either. Farak had started taking drugs on the job within months of joining the lab. On top of that, it was also ensured that no analyst would ever work without supervision. 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. "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. That motion was denied, and the notice letters will explain Farak's tampering without any mention of prosecutorial misconduct. It declined Farak's offer of a detailed confession in exchange for leniency, nixing the offer without even negotiating terms. Robertson rejected Kaczmarek's claims she should not be held responsible for the turning over of exculpatory evidence because she was not part of the "prosecution team" in Penate's case. 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. 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. State prosecutors gave Farak the immunity they had declined to grant two years earlier, then asked when she started analyzing samples while high. Thus, only defendants whose evidence she tested in the six-month window before her arrest could challenge their cases. Farak struggled with mental health throughout her life, the documentary series explains. Rollins said it covers "a period of time in which either now disgraced chemist Annie Dookhan, or another convicted chemist Sonja Farak ," worked there. Her notes record on-the-job drug use ranging from small nips of the lab's baseline. Our streamlined software is accessible wherever and whenever you . She's no longer in prison, as Farak has served her sentence. (Featured Image Credit: Mass Live). Powered by WordPress.com VIP. This is the story of Farak's drug-induced wrongdoings, and it's the. She grew up in Portsmouth with her sister Amy. "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. YouTube The criminal prosecution wasn't the only investigation of the Dookhan scandal. In the aftermath, the court felt it necessary to make clear that "no prosecutorhas the authority to decline to disclose exculpatory information.". But whether anyone investigated her conduct during a brief stint working at the state's Boston drug lab is at . She was released in 2015, as reported by Mass Live. The staff in the new lab was also doubled, and the number of trainees was also increased. 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.". TherapyNotes. Accessibility | But Ryan, who represented Penate, suspected it was more extensive. In an August 2013 email, Ryan asked Assistant Attorney General Kris Foster to review evidence taken from Farak. 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. 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. Obviously, after a blunder of such scale, no one would want their samples checked from the same lab. Ryan then filed a 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.". "Whether law enforcement officials overlooked these papers or intentionally suppressed them is a question for another day.". El 6 de enero de 2014, Farak se declar culpable de los cargos en su contra. denied Penates motion to dismiss the case, saying there was no evidence that Faraks misconduct extended to his case. Because of all that, it's no surprise that Farak was sent to prison in Massachusetts. Due to the conviction, prosecutors were forced to dismiss more than . compelled release of additional drug treatment records, which indicated Farak used a variety of drugs that she stole from the lab for years. 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. 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. 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. They tend to be more freeform notes about the session and your impressions of the client's statements and demeanour. "It was almost like Dookhan wanted to get caught," one of her former co-workers told state police in 2012. 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 . Farak started at Amherst lab in Aug 2004 p. 32. Coakley did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story. 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 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. Investigators gave that information to Kaczmarek and the state AG's office,according tohearings before thestate board that disciplines attorneys. Farak worked for the Amherst Drug Lab in Massachusetts for 9 years when she was convicted of stealing and using them. 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. Grand Jury Transcript - Sonja Farak - September 16, 2015. 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. 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. She was ar-rested for tampering with evidence while abusing narcotics at work. The attorney general's representative at these hearings was Assistant Attorney General Kris Foster, a recent hire. 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. The scandal led. 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. Our posture is to not delve into the twists and turns of the investigation or the report and to let it stand on its own, Merrigan said. Soon after Dookhan's arrest, Coakley's office asked the governor to order a broader independent probe of the Hinton lab. Since then, she has kept a low profile. 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. Terms Of Use, (Annie Dookhan (left) and Sonja Farak, Associated Press). "Because on almost a daily basis Farak abused narcoticsthere is no assurance that she was able to perform chemical analysis correctly," the judge found. Martha Coakley, then attorney general for the state, argued in Melendez-Diaz that a chemist's certificate contains only "neutral, objective facts." The governor also tapped a local attorney, David Meier, to count how many individuals' cases might be tainted. Farak was getting high off the confiscated drugs police sent her way before replacing the evidence with fake drugs. When a Therapy Session starts, the software automatically creates a To-Do list item reminding users to create the relevant documentation. "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.". Process Notes/Psychotherapy Notes Process notes are sometimes also referred to as psychotherapy notesthey're the notes you take during or after a session. A few months before her arrest, Farak's counselor recommended in-patient rehab. The newest true crime series from Netflix, How to Fix a Drug Scandal, was released on April 1, 2020. "It would be difficult to overstate the significance of these documents," Ryan wrote to the attorney general's office. 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. Many more are likely to follow, with the total expected to exceed 50,000. "Forensic evidence is not uniquely immune from the risk of manipulation," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority. At this point, Farakunlike Dookhandidn't admit anything. Over time, Farak's drug use turned to cocaine, LSD and, eventually, crack. Sonja Farak. She tried to kill herself in high school, according to Rolling Stone. May 2003 started working in Hinton drug lab p. 14. Farak admitted in testimony that she began using drugs almost as soon as she started working at the Massachusetts State Crime Lab in Amherst. Farak was arrested the next day, and the attorney general's office assigned the case to Anne Kaczmarek. 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. Foster She was sentenced to 18 months in jail plus five years of probation. 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. Dookhan was sentenced to prison in 2013. 3.3.2023 5:30 PM, Joe Lancaster Listen Live: Classic and Contemporary Celtic, Listen Live: Cape, Coast and Islands NPR Station, Boston nonprofit Street2Ivy is producing this generation's entrepreneurs. This is merely a fishing expedition, Foster wrote in 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! With the lab's ample drug supply, she was able to sneak the drug each day from a jug that resided in the shared workspace.
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sonja farak therapy notes