sonja farak therapy notes

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. She was sentenced in 2014 to 18 months in prison and 5 years of probation. 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. 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. Defense attorneys say withheld Farak notes implicate prosecutors - News Sonja Farak: 35,000 criminal cases were dismissed because this - MEAWW Four months after Ryan found the worksheets, Judge Kinder memo, Kaczmarek told her supervisors that "Farak's admissions on her 'emotional worksheets' recovered from her car detail her struggle with substance abuse. 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. Coakley assigned the case against Dookhan to Assistant Attorney General Anne Kaczmarek and her supervisor, John Verner. 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. As Solotaroff recounts in detail, Massachusetts attorney Luke Ryan represented two people who were accused of drug charges that Farak had analyzed . 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. Before her sentencing, Farak failed a drug test while out on bail, according to Mass Live. 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 "I suspect that if another entity was in the mix"perhaps the inspector general or an independent investigator"the Attorney General's Office would have treated the Farak case much more seriously and would have been much more reluctant to hide the ball," Ryan writes in an email. In 2019, the chemist was spotted at federal court in Springfield, MA , attending a civil case. 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. Lets find out. The information showed that Farak sought therapy for drug addiction and that her misconduct had been ongoing for years. Patrick appointed the state inspector general to look into it. How to Fix a Drug Scandal (TV Mini Series 2020) - IMDb Her ar-rest led to the dismissal of thousands of drug cases in Massachusetts. On top of that, it was also ensured that no analyst would ever work without supervision. Investigators either missed or declined opportunities to dig very deep. (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. Penate is seeking a new trial, contending the conviction should be reversed because of prosecutorial misconduct and evidence tainted by Farak. He was floored when he found the worksheets. TherapyNotes But whether anyone investigated her conduct during a brief stint working at the state's Boston drug lab is at . The lawsuit names Kaczmarek, Farak and three members of the state police. sonja farak - masslive.com At some point, the attorney general's office stopped chasing leads entirely. It declined Farak's offer of a detailed confession in exchange for leniency, nixing the offer without even negotiating terms. As Kaczmarek herself later observed, Farak essentially had "a drugstore at her disposal" from her first day at the Amherst lab. The lone dissenting justice called the decision "too little and too late" and argued that the severity of the scandal required tossing all the cases. 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 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." Sgt. How to Fix a Drug Scandal: With Shannon O'Neill, Karl Kenzler, Paul Solotaroff, Scott Allen. Prosecutors have an obligation to give the defense exculpatory evidence including anything that could weaken evidence against defendants. Two detectives found Farak at a courthouse waiting to testify on an unrelated matter. And when defense attorneys tried to do it themselves, Coakley's office blocked their efforts. And both pose the obvious question about how chemists could behave so badly for years without detection. Obviously, after a blunder of such scale, no one would want their samples checked from the same lab. In the series, it's explained that Farak loved the energy the meth gave her. "Forensic evidence is not uniquely immune from the risk of manipulation," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority. Farak. She tried to kill herself in high school, according to Rolling Stone. | 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. Finding that there did not appear to be enough slides in Dookhan's discard pile to match her numbers, the colleague brought his concerns to an outside attorney, who advised he should be careful making "accusations about a young woman's career," he later told state police. It's been like this forever, or at least since girlhood. 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. Chemist was high at work for 8 years: court docs - CBS News Support GBH. 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.". Who Is Sonja Farak From Netflix's 'How to Fix a Drug Scandal'? | True In 2012, she began taking from co-workers' samples, forging intake forms and editing the lab database to cover her tracks. Inwardly though, Sonja was struggling. Approximately one year later, she pled guilty to tampering with evidence, unlawful possession, and stealing narcotics. Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility at GBH, Transparency in Coverage Cost-Sharing Disclosures. After the Supreme Court's decision, a skeptical colleague started tracking how many microscope slides Dookhan used to test samples for cocaine. "No reasonablejury could conclude that this evidence is not favorable.". 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. Judge Kinder denied Ryans motion. Powered by WordPress.com VIP. PDF United States Court of Appeals 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. 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. Report shows more than 24k wrongful convictions dismissed in drug lab But the Farak scandal is in many ways worse, since the chemist's crimes were compounded by drug abuse on the job and prosecutorial misconduct that the state's top court called "the deceptive withholding of exculpatory evidence by members of the Attorney General's office.". The defense bar had raised concerns that prosecutors might be "perceived as having a stake" in such an investigation. One was clearly dated November 16, 2011a year and two months before her arrest. 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. 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. 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. Episode 1. This past Tuesday, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court filed a report saying that more than 24,000 convictions in 16,449 cases have been dismissed as a result of foul play by a former state drug lab chemist. "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. Thus, only defendants whose evidence she tested in the six-month window before her arrest could challenge their cases. Instead, Coakley's office served as gatekeeper to evidence that could have untangled the scandal and freed thousands of people from prison and jail years earlier, or at least wiped their improper convictions off the books. Verner, who testified that he didn't "micromanage" Kaczmarek, escaped criticism. Joseph Ballou, lead investigator for the state police, called them the most important documents from the car. Farak signed a certification of drug samples in Penate's case on Dec. 22, 2011. According to the Daily Hampshire Gazette, Farak graduated with awards and distinctions. "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. Sonja Farak, a chemist with a longterm mental health struggle, is the catalyst of the story, but it doesn't end with her. The Farak scandal came as the state grappled with another drug lab crisis. Massachusetts DA seeks to vacate thousands of drug convictions - CNN The medical records stated that she did not have an existing drug problem that was amplified by her access to more substances. Disgraced drug lab chemist Sonja Farak emerges as her own attorney as defendant in $5.7 million federal lawsuit. "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. A Powerful EHR to Manage a Thriving Practice. Sonja Farak was a chemist for a state crime lab in Massachusetts. But Ryan, who represented Penate, suspected it was more extensive. Farak trabaj en el laboratorio Amherst desde el verano de 2004 y poco despus comenz a tomar las drogas del laboratorio. Join half a million readers enjoying Newsweek's free newsletters, Sonja Farak is the subject of Netflix's "How To Fix a Drug Scandal. "First, of course, are the defendants, who when charged in the criminal justice system have the right to expect that they will be given due process and there will be fair and accurate information used in any prosecution against them." Joseph . 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 . 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. 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. ", Everyone Practices Cancel Culture | Opinion, Deplatforming Free Speech is Dangerous | Opinion. 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. When a Therapy Session starts, the software automatically creates a To-Do list item reminding users to create the relevant documentation. She was released in 2015, as reported by Mass Live. The story of the intertwining Farak and Penate evidence began in January 2013, when state police arrested Farak and searched her car. At the time of her arrest, she had resided in 37 Laurel Park in Northampton. And so, when she pleaded guilty in January 2014, Farak got what one attorney called "de facto immunity." The Chemists and the Cover-Up - Reason.com Among the papers they seized were handwritten worksheets Farak completed for drug-abuse therapy. 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. memo to Judge Kinder the next week, Foster said she reviewed the file, and said every document in it had already been disclosed. The place was closed as soon as Faraks crimes came to light. Faraks wife had her own mental health problems, and according to Rolling Stone, Farak would have conflict with her wife every night at home. Foster consulted Kaczmarek about the files contents, according to an Fortunately, the courts largely ignored this shallow investigation. After graduating from Portsmouth High School, Farak attended the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where she got a bachelor of science degree in biochemistry in 2000. In a separate opinion in October 2018, the Supreme Judicial Court also ordered the state to return most court fines and probation fees to people whose cases were dismissed; one estimate puts that price tag at $10 million. 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. As . 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. The lead prosecutor on Farak's case knew about the diaries, as did supervisors at the state attorney general's office. 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. The responsibility of the mess that she created should also rest upon the shoulders of her workplace that allowed her the opportunity to indulge so freely in drugs in the first place. Farak wasn't the first Massachusetts chemist to tamper with drug evidence. | The Amherst Bulletin reported that her medical records indicated that she only became addicted to drugs once she started working at the lab, in 2004. 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. Subscribe to Reason Roundup, a wrap up of the last 24 hours of news, delivered fresh each morning. The surveillance of the chemists as well as the standards and the confiscated drugs has also been increased considerably. Listen Live: Classic and Contemporary Celtic, Listen Live: Cape, Coast and Islands NPR Station, Boston nonprofit Street2Ivy is producing this generation's entrepreneurs. She said, It was about coping; it certainly wasnt about having fun; I dont think shes had fun in quite a while.. YouTube 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. ", Officials rushed to downplay the situation in Amherst. MA: A reckoning for prosecutors in drug lab scandal? - NADDI Maybe it's not a matter of checklists or reminders that prosecutors have to keep their eyes open for improprieties. Massachusetts Chemist Prosecution Leads to Falling Consumer Confidence 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. 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. GBH News Center for Investigative Reporting. But a crucial issue was not before the court. 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. Her reporting focuses on mental health, criminal justice and education. Privacy Policy | The criminal prosecution wasn't the only investigation of the Dookhan scandal. 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 wrongdoings were exposed when unsealed cocaine and a crack pipe were found under her desk. Fue arrestada el 19 de enero de 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. GBH News brings you the stories, local voices, and big ideas that shape our world. Inwardly though, Sonja Farak was striving. 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. When grand jury materials were eventually released to defense attorneys, then, they did not mention that these documents existed. denied Penates motion to dismiss the case, saying there was no evidence that Faraks misconduct extended to his case. The actions of Sonja Farak and Annie Dookhan caused a racket of such a scale that the state had to recompense for it with millions of dollars and had to make a historic move in the dismissal of wrongful convictions. 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. To better estimate how many convictions will have to be reviewed because of Farak, the Supreme Judicial Court Sonja Farak Today: Where Is She Now? | Heavy.com 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. 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." Because she did so, Plaintiff served more than five years in a state prison.". Emma Camp 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. She first worked at the Hinton State Laboratory in Jamaica Plain for a year as a bacteriologist working on HIV tests before she transferred to the Amherst Lab for drug analysis. A few months before her arrest, Farak's counselor recommended in-patient rehab. "he didn't request a warrant. Farak worked under the influence of drugs for nine years - from 2004 to 2013 - before she was caught. 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. Kaczmarek has repeatedly testified she did not act intentionally and that she thought the worksheets had been turned over to the district attorneys who prosecuted the cases involved. "No reasonable individual could have failed to appreciate the unlawfulness of [Kaczmarek's] actions in these circumstances," Robertson wrote in her ruling. Why Won't Maryland Sell Me a Goddamn Beer? Farak admitted in testimony that she began using drugs almost as soon as she started working at the Massachusetts State Crime Lab in Amherst. 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. And then the bigger investigation was going to be someone else.". The former judges and the state police officers who helped them conducted a thorough review, said Emalie Gainey, spokeswoman for Attorney General Maura Healey. The Netflix docuseries ends by acknowledging that Farak received an 18-month sentence, and that defense attorney Luke Ryan was able . 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. Scalia may as well have been describing Dookhan. In Farak's car, police found a "works kit"crack cocaine, a spatula, and copper mesh, often used as a pipe filter. Massachusetts prosecutor tied to Sonja Farak drug lab scandal 'actively Chemist Sonja Farak pleaded guilty to "tampering with evidence" back in 2014 and was sentenced to 18 months in prison. During the next four years, she would periodically sober up and then relapse. She's no longer in prison, as Farak has served her sentence. Farak signed This not only led to people getting a reprieve from prison but also filing their own lawsuits against the injustice they had to suffer. After serving for 13 months, she was released on parole in 2015. 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. The scandal led. 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. 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. 2. Where is Sonja now? If chemists had to testify in person, Coakley warned melodramatically, misdemeanor drug prosecutions "would essentially grind to a halt. Several defense attorneys who called for the Velis-Merrigan investigation say the former judges and their state police investigators got it wrong. To multiple courts' amazement, her incessant drug use never caught the attention of her co-workers. While Dookhan had tampered with evidence and indulged in dry-labbing, Farak stole from her workplace. 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. READ NEXT: Netflixs How to Fix a Drug Scandal Story: 5 Fast Facts, Sonja Farak: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know, Please review our privacy policy here: https://heavy.com/privacy-policy/, Copyright 2023 Heavy, Inc. All rights reserved. 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. Each employee had a unique swipe card, but Farak simply used a physical key to get in after hours and on weekends. 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. We couldn't do it without you. mentioned a New England Patriots game on Saturday, Dec. 24 which corresponded with a game date in 2011. 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. "Because on almost a daily basis Farak abused narcoticsthere is no assurance that she was able to perform chemical analysis correctly," the judge found. This very well could have been the end of the investigative trail but for a few stubborn defense lawyers, who appealed the ruling. The report Shortly into her role at Amherst, Farak decided to try liquid methamphetamine to ease her personal struggles. 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. Among the papers they seized were handwritten worksheets Farak completed for drug-abuse therapy. Because state prosecutors hid Farak's substance abuse diaries, it took far too long for the full timeline of her crimes to become public. 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. 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. Like Hinton, the Amherst lab had no cameras. After serving just a year of her 18 month sentence, Farak was released from prison in 2015. Where Is Sonja Farak From 'How To Fix A Drug Scandal' Now? - Women's Health This is the story of Farak's drug-induced wrongdoings, and it's the story of the Massachusetts Attorney General's office apparently turning a blind eye on those wrongfully convicted because of Farak's mistakes.

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