sonja farak therapy notes

sonja farak therapy notes

| A drug chemist . compelled release of additional drug treatment records, which indicated Farak used a variety of drugs that she stole from the lab for years. Foster replied that because the investigation against Farak was ongoing, she couldnt let him see it. Kaczmarek quoted the worksheets in a memo to her supervisor, Verner, and others, summarizing that they revealed Farak's "struggle with substance abuse." 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. Without access to the diaries, the Springfield judge in 2013 found that Farak had starting stealing from samples in summer 2012. 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! 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.". So, in a way, it is not from her that the queue of the blame should begin; it should be from the lab and the authorities themselves. Farak apparently still tested each caseunlike Annie Dookhan, another Massachusetts chemist who was arrested five months prior to Farak for fabricating test results. In 2017, a different judge ruled that Foster's actions constituted a "fraud upon the court," calling the letter "deliberately misleading." After weeks of hearings, a "special hearing officer" selected by the board recommended potential sanctions against them all. Joseph . The court also dismissed all meth cases processed at the lab since Farak started in 2004. Yet Dookhan's brazen crimes went undetected for ages. In worksheet notes dated Thursday, Dec. 22, Farak This not only led to people getting a reprieve from prison but also filing their own lawsuits against the injustice they had to suffer. Shawn Musgrave is a reporter who was until recently based in Boston. Foster, now general counsel at the Massachusetts Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission, and Kaczmarek, now a clerk magistrate in Suffolk Superior Court, declined to comment for this story. The chemist, Sonja Farak, worked at the state drug lab in Amherst, Massachusetts, for more than eight years. Sonja Farak, a chemist with a longterm mental health struggle, is the catalyst of the story, but it doesn't end with her. As a teenager, she had attempted suicide. Where is Sonja now? Judge Kinder ordered her to produce all potentially privileged documents for his review to determine whether they could be disclosed. Defense lawyers doubled down on challenges to every case she might have taintednot just her own, which district attorneys ultimately agreed to dismiss, but also her co-workers', based on Farak's admission that she stole from other chemists' samples. When the Farak scandal erupted, that misconduct came into view. Would love your thoughts, please comment. She was trying to suppress mental health issues, depression in specific, and she attempted to kill herself in high school, according to Rolling Stone. . Exhausted from the ongoing scandal in Boston, state officials were desperate for damage control. When grand jury materials were eventually released to defense attorneys, then, they did not mention that these documents existed. 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. The attorney general's officeKaczmarek or her supervisorscould have asked a judge to determine whether the worksheets were actually privileged, as Kaczmarek later acknowledged. Together, we can create a more connected and informed world. Kaczmarek wrote back. It was an astoundingly light touch for the second state chemist arrested in six months. The special hearing officer found Kaczmarek "displayed no remorse" and was "not candid" during the disciplinary proceedings. She tried to kill herself in high school, according to Rolling Stone. That settlement awaits approval by a judge. At some point, the attorney general's office stopped chasing leads entirely. 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.". 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. She couldn't be sure which cases these were, Dookhan told investigators. Join us. The information showed that Farak sought therapy for drug addiction and that her misconduct had been ongoing for years. Our streamlined software is accessible wherever and whenever you . "If she were suffering from back injurymaybe she took some oxys?" 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 state's top court took an even harsher view, ruling in October 2018 that the attorney general's office as an institution was responsible for the prosecutorial misconduct of its former employees. Ryan finally viewed the file in the attorney generals offices in October 2014. Ryan then filed a And when defense attorneys tried to do it themselves, Coakley's office blocked their efforts. The twin Massachusetts drug lab scandals are unprecedented in the sheer number of cases thrown out because of forensic misconduct. In a 61 ruling by the Supreme Judicial Court in 2017, the defense bar, led by public defenders and the Massachusetts branch of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), won the dismissal of almost every conviction based on Dookhan's analysismore than 36,000 cases in all. 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. wrote she "tried to resist using @ work, but ended up failing." 3.3.2023 5:45 PM, Jacob Sullum 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. If Farak found a substance was a true drug, the person it was confiscated from could be convicted of a substance-related crime. 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. 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. Former chemist Annie Dookhan was convicted in 2013 on charges of improperly testing drug evidence at a drug lab in Boston. Penate argued the court should follow those findings. Dookhan was sentenced to prison in 2013. 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. They tend to be more freeform notes about the session and your impressions of the client's statements and demeanour. Farak struggled with mental health throughout her life, the documentary series explains. Where Is Sonja Farak 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. Her job consisted of testing drugs that have. She started seeing a substance abuse therapist around this time. He didn't buy her quibbling that there's a difference between an explicit lie and obfuscation by grammar. Farak signed Shortly into her role at Amherst, Farak decided to try liquid methamphetamine to ease her personal struggles. At the time of her arrest, she had resided in 37 Laurel Park in Northampton. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled in 2015by which time the current state attorney general, Maura Healey, had been electedthat it was "imperative" for the government to "thoroughly investigate the timing and scope of Farak's misconduct." Most important, they found seven worksheets from Farak's substance abuse therapy. She played as the starting guard for Portsmouth High Schools freshman team. Sonja Farak worked as a chemist for the state of Massachusetts, specializing in identifying illegal substances. Thus, only defendants whose evidence she tested in the six-month window before her arrest could challenge their cases. The lead prosecutor on Farak's case knew about the diaries, as did supervisors at the state attorney general's office. 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. Emma Camp ", Prosecutors nationwide pretty uniformly backed this argument, which the Supreme Court rejected in a 54 opinion. Follow us so you don't miss a thing! Tens of thousands of criminal drug cases were dismissed as a result of misconduct by Dookhan and Farak. The governor didn't appoint the inspector general or anyone else to determine how long Farak was altering samples or running analyses while high. "These drugswere tested fairly," Coakley claimed the day after Farak's arrest. Another three days later, state police conducted a full search of Farak's workstation, finding a vial of powder that tested positive for oxycodone, plus 11.7 grams of cocaine in a desk drawer. "It is critical that all parties have unquestioned faith in that process from the beginning so that they will have full confidence in the conclusions drawn at the end," Coakley said. "Because on almost a daily basis Farak abused narcoticsthere is no assurance that she was able to perform chemical analysis correctly," the judge found. In an August 2013 email, Ryan asked Assistant Attorney General Kris Foster to review evidence taken from Farak. Faraks wife had her own mental health problems, and according to Rolling Stone, Farak would have conflict with her wife every night at home. There is no allegation of misconduct against the local prosecutors who presented the case against Penate in Hampden County Superior Court. 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. Farak was a former lab chemist at a lab in Amherst, Massachusetts and was convicted of stealing and using drugs from the lab where she worked. We were unable to subscribe you to WBUR Today. 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. 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. TherapyNotes. 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. After graduating from Portsmouth High School, Farak attended the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where she got a bachelor of science degree in biochemistry in 2000. After serving for 13 months, she was released on parole in 2015. Soon after Dookhan's arrest, Coakley's office asked the governor to order a broader independent probe of the Hinton lab. Shawn Musgrave | 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. Farak signed a certification of drug samples in Penate's case on Dec. 22, 2011. When a Therapy Session starts, the software automatically creates a To-Do list item reminding users to create the relevant documentation. Her medical records included notes from Faraks therapist in Amherst, Anna Kogan. According to a newspaper article from 1992, she was the first female in Rhode Island to be on a high school football team. A Powerful EHR to Manage a Thriving Practice. El 6 de enero de 2014, Farak se declar culpable de los cargos en su contra. Farak was released from prison in 2015 and has kept a low profile since. His email was one of more than 800 released with the Velis-Merrigan report. State prosecutors gave Farak the immunity they had declined to grant two years earlier, then asked when she started analyzing samples while high. Shown results suggesting otherwise, she copped to contaminating samples "a few times" during the previous "two to three years.". Among the papers they seized were handwritten worksheets Farak completed for drug-abuse therapy. Perhaps, as criminal justice scandals inevitably emerge, we need to get more independent eyes on the evidence from the start. The Farak scandal came as the state grappled with another drug lab crisis. For years, Sonja Farak was addicted to cocaine, methamphetamine, and amphetamines, the kind of drugs usually bought from street dealers in covert transactions that carry the constant risk of arrest. The drug lab technician was sent to prison for 18 months, but was released in 2015. 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 . Not only did they not turn these documents over, but I wasnt aware that they existed, said Frank Flannery, who was the Hampden County assistant district attorney assigned to appeals following Faraks arrest. Compromised drug samples often fit the definition. The four years since Ryan discovered Farak's diaries have been a bitter fight over this question of culpabilitywhether Kaczmarek, Foster, and their colleagues were merely careless or whether they deliberately hid crucial evidence. This is the story of Farak's drug-induced wrongdoings, and it's the. Fortunately, the courts largely ignored this shallow investigation. 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. Faraks notes also 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. At least 11,000 cases have already been dismissed due to fallout from the scandal, with thousands more likely to come. a certification of drug samples in Penates case on Dec. 22, 2011. ", Officials rushed to downplay the situation in Amherst. It contained substances often used to make counterfeit cocaine, including soap, baking soda, candle wax, and modeling clay, plus lab dishes, wax paper, and fragments of a crack pipe. Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility at GBH, Transparency in Coverage Cost-Sharing Disclosures. Since then, she has kept a low profile. Thank you! Kaczmarek also oversaw the prosecution for the attorney general's office in that case. It included information about the type of drugs she tampered with. A final decision is still pending and must be approved by the state Supreme Judicial Court. Deborah Becker Twitter Host/ReporterDeborah Becker is a senior correspondent and host at WBUR. Process Notes/Psychotherapy Notes Process notes are sometimes also referred to as psychotherapy notesthey're the notes you take during or after a session. Reporting for this story was supported by the Fund for Investigative Journalism. A hearing on their motions is scheduled next month. 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. Still, the state was acquiring evidence. To better estimate how many convictions will have to be reviewed because of Farak, the Supreme Judicial Court 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. . The justices ordered Healey's department to cover all costs of notifying all defendants whose cases were dismissed. 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. 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. "Thousands of defendants were kept in the dark for far too long about the government misconduct in their cases," the ACLU and the Committee for Public Counsel Services, the state's public defense agency, wrote in a motion. His report deemed Dookhan the "sole bad actor" at the lab, a finding that remains disputed in some circles. During the next four years, she would periodically sober up and then relapse. She had been accused of intentional infliction of emotional distress in addition to the conspiracy to violate [Penates] civil rights.. She had never quashed a subpoena before, but supervisors told her to fend off motions about Farak. Privacy Policy | How to Fix a Drug Scandal: With Shannon O'Neill, Karl Kenzler, Paul Solotaroff, Scott Allen. ", The chemist, Sonja Farak, worked at the state drug lab in Amherst, Massachusetts, for more than eight years. Since her release, she has kept a low profile and managed to stay out of the public . Coakley did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story. She also starting dipping into police-submitted samples, a "whole other level of morality," as Farak called it during a fall 2015 special grand jury session. "The need to inform defendants of government misconduct does not disappear when that misconduct was committed by a government lawyer as opposed to a government chemist.". Dookhan was now spending less time at her lab bench and more time testifying in court about her results. She married Lee after starting her job, but their marriage was rocky. One was clearly dated November 16, 2011a year and two months before her arrest. Her role was to test for the presence of illegal substances, which could be instrumental in thousands of . 3.4.2023 8:00 AM, Reason Staff Because the attorney general had "portrayed Farak as a dedicated public servant who was apprehended immediately after crossing the line, there was also no reasonto waste resources engaging in any additional introspection.". The Hinton drug lab, operated by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, appears to have been run largely on the honor system. 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. 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. Join half a million readers enjoying Newsweek's free newsletters, Sonja Farak is the subject of Netflix's "How To Fix a Drug Scandal. She had unrestricted access to the evidence room. ", But another co-worker was suspicious, particularly since he "never saw Dookhan in front of a microscope.". answered that the state considered the evidence irrelevant to any case other than Faraks.. She soon crossed all these lines. email highlighted in the Velis-Merrigan report. Read More: Where is Sonja Farak Sister Now? But Ryan, who represented Penate, suspected it was more extensive. Though. Patrick appointed the state inspector general to look into it. Damning evidence reveals drug lab chemist Sonja Farak's addictions. 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. Below is an outline of her charges. The place was closed as soon as Faraks crimes came to light. The criminal prosecution wasn't the only investigation of the Dookhan scandal. Over time, Farak's drug use turned to cocaine, LSD and, eventually, crack. Foster said that Kaczmarek told her all relevant evidence had been turned over and that her supervisor told her to write the letter, though both denied these claims. A. 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. Netflix's latest true-crime series, How to Fix a Drug Scandal, dives deep into a shocking Massachusetts scandal, one that started in the humble confines of an underfunded drug testing lab and ended with an entire system in question. | Prosecutors have an obligation to give the defense exculpatory evidence including anything that could weaken evidence against defendants. Why Won't Maryland Sell Me a Goddamn Beer? denied Penates motion to dismiss the case, saying there was no evidence that Faraks misconduct extended to his case. We couldn't do it without you. It's Boston local news in one concise, fun and informative email. another filing. 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. But when the relevant police reports were released to defense attorneys, there was no mention of the diary entries' existence, much less that they went back so far. To multiple courts' amazement, her incessant drug use never caught the attention of her co-workers. Thanks to Farak's testimony and those diary worksheets, we now know that, soon after joining the Amherst lab in 2004, Farak started skimming from the methamphetamine "standard," an undiluted oil used as a reference against which suspected meth samples are compared. 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. Kaczmarek was now juggling two scandals on opposite sides of the state. She received the American Institute of Chemists Award in her final year as well as a Crimson and Gray Award from the school a year before, which recognized her dedication, commitment and unselfishness in the enrichment of student life at WPI. A Rolling Stone piece on Farak also indicated that she graduated with high distinction from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Foster consulted Kaczmarek about the files contents, according to an Investigators either missed or declined opportunities to dig very deep. 2023 Cinemaholic Inc. All rights reserved. From 2004 to 2013, Farak took advantage of . "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." Farak is amongst one of the 18 defendants battling the lawsuit filed by Rolando Penate. From the April 2023 issue, Billy Binion Penate is seeking a new trial, contending the conviction should be reversed because of prosecutorial misconduct and evidence tainted by Farak. A judge sentenced Dookhan to three years in prison; she was granted parole in April 2016. Talking Politics: Should a new government agency protect the coastline from climate change? "It would be difficult to overstate the significance of these documents, Ryan According to her teammates, She was the best center in the league last year, and they [felt] stronger with her in there than with some guys.. He recommended she lose her law license for two years; the Office of Bar Counsel later argued Kaczmarek should be disbarred. Her access to evidence was not restricted, and she continued testifying in court. But she worried they might be privileged as health information. Sonja Farak was a chemist at a state drug lab in Amherst, Massachusetts, from 2005 to 2013. Netflixs How to Fix a Drug Scandal Story: 5 Fast Facts. Two Massachusetts drug lab technicians Sonja Farak and Annie Dookhan were caught tainting evidence in separate drug labs in different but equally shocking ways. Meier put the number at 40,323 defendants, though some have called that an overestimate. 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. "Forensic evidence is not uniquely immune from the risk of manipulation," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority. ", Everyone Practices Cancel Culture | Opinion, Deplatforming Free Speech is Dangerous | Opinion. 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. "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. She grew up in Portsmouth with her sister Amy. Her ar-rest led to the dismissal of thousands of drug cases in Massachusetts. His is one of what lawyers say could be thousands of convictions questioned in the wake of the Farak scandal. And both pose the obvious question about how chemists could behave so badly for years without detection. 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.". The report That motion was denied, and the notice letters will explain Farak's tampering without any mention of prosecutorial misconduct. NORTHAMPTON Sonja J. Farak told a nurse at the Western Massachusetts Regional Women's Correctional Center in Chicopee in December 2013 that she used methamphetamines and other stimulants "whenever she could get her hands on them." And since her job as a chemist was to test drug samples at a state drug lab in Amherst, that opportunity came daily. Accessibility | YouTube 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. And when the tests she did run came back negative, Dookhan added controlled substances to the vials. 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. At this point, Farakunlike Dookhandidn't admit anything. Sonja Farak in How to Fix a Drug Scandal. She was released in 2015, as reported by Mass Live. It's not as bad as Dookhan, they asserted and implied over and over. shipped nearly 300 pages of previously undisclosed materials to local prosecutors around the state. Powered by. Name. 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. The medical records stated that she did not have an existing drug problem that was amplified by her access to more substances. She recovered, made it through college and got a job as a chemist at the Amherst Crime Lab, where she tested confiscated drugs. Kaczmarek had obtained the evidence at issue while she was prosecuting Farak on state charges of tampering with evidence and drug possession. The surveillance of the chemists as well as the standards and the confiscated drugs has also been increased considerably. Fue arrestada el 19 de enero de 2013. Listen Live: Classic and Contemporary Celtic, Listen Live: Cape, Coast and Islands NPR Station, Boston nonprofit Street2Ivy is producing this generation's entrepreneurs. Scalia may as well have been describing Dookhan. 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." Inwardly though, Sonja was struggling.

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