Sonja Farak, one of the drug chemists putin the spotlight in the documentary, first made headlines when she was the first girl in Rhode Island to play high school football in a public school system! Farak stole the drugs (mainly meth, cocaine, and crack cocaine) because she was addicted. She isnt on drugs anymore, and I think that that is incredible, Carr, who also directed the true-crime documentaries I Love You, Now Die and Mommy Dead and Dearest, told Womens Health. As . I think its very painful to be Sonja and I regret having to advocate against her, Ryan said in the docuseries. Massachusetts authorities are reviewing the sentences of 1,140 people who are in prison after being convicted with evidence at least partly provided by Dookhan. Farak was smoking crack 10 to 12 times a day. She suffered from substance misuse disorder and she was in the worst kind of place to try to combat that, defense attorney Luke Ryan, He went to bat for clients who were influenced by both Farak and Dookhans misconduct. READ NEXT: 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. Thousands of people who had drug convictions in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, may soon see them vacated due to a "catastrophic failure of management," the county's district attorney Rachael . The feedback will only be used for improving the website. Court records showed that Farak was smocking crack and dropping acid on the same day that she tested the drugs in Penates case. 100 Main Street, Third Floor Sonja Farak was a chemist at a state drug lab in Amherst, Massachusetts, from 2005 to 2013. Its unclear if she still owns the property and if she lives there now. 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 . 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. Here are 10 things everyone completely missed in Netflix's How to Fix a Drug Scandal. Farak, a chemist at the Massachusetts State Crime Laboratory in Amherst, was arrested in 2013. Without ever absolving these two women, Carr finds something tragic in . A spokesperson for Attorney General Maura Healey said the AG has long been clear that the conduct that occurred during the previous administration was completely unacceptable and her focus has always been making sure the mistakes of the past never happen again., She implemented a clear policy relating to the disclosure of evidence that is covered at mandatory trainings, created an internal ethics committee, and is committed to continually enhancing the offices integrity practices, the spokesperson added. Yes, it is so exciting to put a series out and I think the series is well-reported and researched but its something that happened in the midst of her addiction, and she was incredibly embarrassed about it. No shot is filmed on accident. According to the Daily Hampshire Gazette, Farak graduated with awards and distinctions. RELATED:Top 10 Documentaries On Netflix Right Now (According To IMDb). Magistrate Judge Robertson denied a request in Penate's lawsuit that Kaczmarek be prohibited from contesting the special hearing officer's findings. I find that everyone needs to be given a second chance.". Northampton, MA 01060 It's rare for the key players of a story to involve mostly women, butthey werein this case. She said, It was about coping; it certainly wasnt about having fun; I dont think shes had fun in quite a while.. Money Heist season 5 on Netflix: Will there be a La Casa de Papel part 5? Would love your thoughts, please comment. Since her release, she has kept a low profile and managed to stay out of the public eye. She later pleaded guilty to stealing drugs from the lab and was sentenced in 2014 to serve 18 months . Sonja Farak was a chemist at a state drug lab in Amherst, Massachusetts, from 2005 to 2013. In Massachusetts it doesn't even end there. Please limit your input to 500 characters. Sonja Farak, who works at a lab in Amherst, in western Massachusetts, removed from a case file a substance that tested positive for cocaine and replaced it with one that didn't, state Attorney . 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 sentenced in January 2014 after she pled guilty to four counts of theft of a controlled substance from an authorized dispensary, four counts of tampering with evidence and two counts of cocaine possession. After eight years at the lab, Sonja was finally caught out and arrested for her actions. I think I make a strong case and advocate that humans are fallible and she needs to be given a second chance, but thats an unpopular opinion, and I cant control how the public reacts to it.. Another chemist was accused of tampering, affecting 34,000 drug cases, in October. An investigation was immediately launched. One of the reasons for the decrepit state and standard of the Amherst lab was the lack of funds. In 2018, the Supreme Judicial Court dismissed an additional 16,000 drug convictions because of former chemist Sonja Farak's malfeasance at the State Laboratory Institute in Amherst (Amherst Drug Lab) between 2004 and 2013. The case notoriously involved a rare one . post office box as her contact information. I felt amazing.. The number is. That settlement awaits approval by a judge. She tested . Netflixs How to Fix a Drug Scandal Story: 5 Fast Facts. Since most drug chemists spend most of their time testing evidence, it doesn't make sense to showcase a chemist sitting at a bench, doing their work, when most of the exciting parts are actually catching the criminals. 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. 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Farak was released from prison in 2015 and has kept a low profile since. After her arrest, in 2013, Farak told prosecutors she had become addicted to drugs while working in the lab and, over nine years, had taken meth, crack cocaine, amphetamines, ketamine and LSD in the lab's bathroom and at the bench where she tested. (413) 586-4800lryan@strhlaw.com, DanielN. Marx 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. Brad Puffer, spokesman for the attorney generals office, told CNN that the substances under investigation were heroin and cocaine. When she tried it she did so when others in the lab went out to lunch it met her expectations. Penate is just one of the thousands of people whose cases were affected by Faraks actions. The charges against Penate were dismissed after Farak's conviction. Documentary series How To Fix a Drug Scandal follows crime drug lab chemists Sonja Farak and Annie Dookhan and how each of their own unique levels of misconduct impacted thousands of cases and resulted in chaos for the legal system. I wasnt abused and yet I still turned out a certain way, still had some problems.. My findings, conclusions and credibility determinations above and below reflect that Kaczmarek not only failed to do this; she actively misled others in the AGO as to what had been produced to the DAOs.. Carr said that Farak is a private person. But it turns out that Farak was really high while running some of those tests. [5] The actions of both women, who acted independently, resulted in tens of thousands of drug counts being dismissed, the largest single mass dismissal of criminal cases in U.S. In one scene, theres an ACLU poster, and on it is a woman that looks eerily similar to actress and producer, Olivia Wilde. (Approx.) She cried as she was sentenced. Its no big deal, 14-year-old Farak said to the Panama City News Herald. Her parents were depicted as loving, and somewhat strict. It's Boston local news in one concise, fun and informative email. Boston, MA 02110 A preliminary investigation found that Dookhan may have touched 60,000 samples that were involved in 34,000 drug cases. Hanchett found a leftover beaker with a white residue on it. The series chronicles nine years of misconduct at two Massachusetts drug labs. Farak also used her position in the lab to manufacture her own drugs for personal use. The medical records stated that she did not have an existing drug problem that was amplified by her access to more substances. Or by navigating to the user icon in the top right. Am I somebody who took her personhood? In fact, she was the first girl in the state of Rhode Island to play high school football in a public school system. The hotline is open Monday through Friday, from 9:30 a . The day Farak was supposed to analyze the sample, she wrote in her diary, tried to resist [using] @ work but ended up failing, per the Washington Post. As per her own court testimony, as revealed in the docu-series, Farak began working at a state drug lab in Amherst in 2004. As of May 19, 2020, allclaimsfor relief due to an invalidated conviction as a result of the misconduct of Sonya Farak and Annie Dookhancan no longer bebrought through an individual motion process. She remained a football fan, and loved the Patriots. Sonja Farak from How to Fix a Drug Scandal (Photo: Netflix) By Alex Finnis. 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