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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. And then the bigger investigation was going to be someone else.". The medical records stated that she did not have an existing drug problem that was amplified by her access to more substances. 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. Maybe it's not a matter of checklists or reminders that prosecutors have to keep their eyes open for improprieties. Judge dismisses 'qualified immunity' claim in suit against ex - WBUR Defense attorneys say withheld Farak notes implicate prosecutors - News "Forensic evidence is not uniquely immune from the risk of manipulation," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority. On paper, these numbers made Dookhan the most productive chemist at Hinton; the next most productive averaged around 300 samples per month. 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 . Exhausted from the ongoing scandal in Boston, state officials were desperate for damage control. Regarding the cases that she had handled, the Massachusetts courts threw out every case in the Amherst lab during her tenure. "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 information showed that Farak sought therapy for drug addiction and that her misconduct had been ongoing for years. Watch How to Fix a Drug Scandal | Netflix Official Site It didnt matter whether or not she was the one who did the testing or some other chemist. Mucha gente que vio el programa se pregunta: dnde est Sonja Farak ahora? But she worried they might be privileged as health information. In 2009, Farak branched out to the lab's amphetamine, phentermine, and cocaine standards. According to the Daily Hampshire Gazette, Farak graduated with awards and distinctions. Before her sentencing, Farak failed a drug test while out on bail, according to Mass Live. Penate was convicted in December 2013 and sentenced to serve five to seven years. In Farak's car, police found a "works kit"crack cocaine, a spatula, and copper mesh, often used as a pipe filter. Judge Kinder ordered her to produce all potentially privileged documents for his review to determine whether they could be disclosed. The Attorney Generals Office, Velis and Merrigan and the state police declined to answer questions about the handling of the Farak evidence. Her notes record on-the-job drug use ranging from small nips of the lab's baseline. How To Write Therapy Progress Notes: 8 Templates & Examples - Quenza 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. Release year: 2020. What Did Sonja Farak Do, Exactly? Penate is seeking a new trial, contending the conviction should be reversed because of prosecutorial misconduct and evidence tainted by Farak. 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.". 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! After she was caught, Farak pleaded guilty to stealing drugs from the lab and was sentenced to prison time of 18 months. memo to Judge Kinder the next week, Foster said she reviewed the file, and said every document in it had already been disclosed. 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. Here's Where Sonja Farak Is Now, After 'How to Fix a Drug Scandal' shipped nearly 300 pages of previously undisclosed materials to local prosecutors around the state. Lab's standards on a fairly regular basis beginning in late 2004 or early 2005," the attorney general's report notes in launching its recounting of the chemist's drug-taking journey . Two drug lab chemists' shocking crimes cripple a state's judicial system and blur the lines of justice for lawyers, officials and thousands of inmates. Though. How to Fix a Drug Scandal - Wikipedia But she insisted the drugs didn't compromise her worka belief that one judge would aptly declare "belies logic.". Damning evidence reveals drug lab chemist Sonja Farak's addictions. As How to Fix a Drug Scandal explores, Farak had long struggled with her mental . How to Fix a Drug Scandal: behind a staggering Netflix crime docuseries Shortly into her role at Amherst, Farak decided to try liquid methamphetamine to ease her personal struggles. This is the story of Farak's drug-induced wrongdoings, and it's the. Verner, who testified that he didn't "micromanage" Kaczmarek, escaped criticism. ", But another co-worker was suspicious, particularly since he "never saw Dookhan in front of a microscope.". Because of all that, it's no surprise that Farak was sent to prison in Massachusetts. Where is Sonja now? Where is Sonja Farak Now? - The Cinemaholic 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." 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. It was an astoundingly light touch for the second state chemist arrested in six months. A local prosecutor also asked Ballou to look into a case Farak had tested as far back as 2005. She started seeing a substance abuse therapist around this time. 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. State prosecutors gave Farak the immunity they had declined to grant two years earlier, then asked when she started analyzing samples while high. The Farak documents indicate she used drugs on the very day she certified samples as heroin in Penates case. Chemist was high at work for 8 years: court docs - CBS News 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. She had been accused of intentional infliction of emotional distress in addition to the conspiracy to violate [Penates] civil rights.. She continued to experience suicidal thoughts, but instead of going through with those thoughts, she started taking the drugs that she would be testing at work. "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.". She had never quashed a subpoena before, but supervisors told her to fend off motions about Farak. 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. She tried to kill herself in high school, according to Rolling Stone. Despite clear indications that Farak used a variety of narcoticsher worksheets mentioned phentermine, and that vial of powdered oxycodone-acetaminophen had been found at her benchKaczmarek also proceeded as if crack cocaine were Farak's sole drug. (Featured Image Credit: Mass Live). Discipline recommended for former assistant attorneys - Masslive 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. 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. Since then, she has kept a low profile. Episode 1. Farak signed We couldn't do it without you. The new numbers appear in a report issued by a court-designated "Special Master." Months after Farak pleaded guilty in January 2014, Ryan filed a In November 2013, Dookhan pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice, tampering with evidence, and perjury. | It had no surveillance cameras, laughable security on evidence safes, and "laissez faire" management, which the state inspector general determined was the "most glaring factor that led to the Dookhan crisis. Farak had started taking drugs on the job within months of joining the Amherst lab in 2004. ", Prosecutors nationwide pretty uniformly backed this argument, which the Supreme Court rejected in a 54 opinion. Two detectives found Farak at a courthouse waiting to testify on an unrelated matter. She couldn't be sure which cases these were, Dookhan told investigators. As Kaczmarek herself later observed, Farak essentially had "a drugstore at her disposal" from her first day at the Amherst lab. 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. Farak struggled with mental health throughout her life, the documentary series explains. wrote to the Attorney Generals Office two days later. 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. 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. Who Is Sonja Farak From Netflix's 'How to Fix a Drug Scandal'? | True Its no big deal, 14-year-old Farak said to the Panama City News Herald. As . That motion was denied, and the notice letters will explain Farak's tampering without any mention of prosecutorial misconduct. To better estimate how many convictions will have to be reviewed because of Farak, the Supreme Judicial Court 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. 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. Obviously, after a blunder of such scale, no one would want their samples checked from the same lab. Four months after Ryan found the worksheets, Judge Kinder In 2014, former Amherst drug lab chemist Sonja Farak was convicted and sentenced to 18 months in prison after it was discovered that she stole and used drugs that she was entrusted to test. She's no longer in prison, as Farak has served her sentence. Sonja Farak worked as a chemist for the state of Massachusetts, specializing in identifying illegal substances. Two Massachusetts drug-testing laboratory technicians are caught tampering with and falsifying drug evidence, and prosecutors are reluctant to disclose the full extent of their criminal behavior. Despite being a star child of the family, Sonja suffered from the mental illnesses that haunted her even in adulthood. Massachusetts crime lab scandal worsens: Dookhan and Farak. 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. Kaczmarek quoted the worksheets in a memo to her supervisor, Verner, and others, summarizing that they revealed Farak's "struggle with substance abuse." Join half a million readers enjoying Newsweek's free newsletters, Sonja Farak is the subject of Netflix's "How To Fix a Drug Scandal. Among the papers they seized were handwritten worksheets Farak completed for drug-abuse therapy. The Farak scandal came as the state grappled with another drug lab crisis.