You can try, Judge dismisses 'qualified immunity' claim in suit against ex-prosecutor in drug lab scandal, Judge declines mass dismissal of cases from tainted drug lab, New Evidence May Implicate Additional Chemists In Statewide Drug Lab Scandal. "They wanted Sonja to be really rendered as human," Carr explains. The drug lab technician was sent to prison for 18 months, but was released in 2015. The move comes months after the American Civil Liberties Union and the state's public defender agency asked the state's highest court to throw out all of the cases tainted by Sonja Farak, who . 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. Many people watching the show are wondering: where is Sonja Farak now? The woman is older now and is perhaps trying to put the incident concerning her daughter, behind her. Deborah Becker Twitter Host/ReporterDeborah Becker is a senior correspondent and host at WBUR. But I remember being terrified, sitting outside the courthouse hysterically crying. on Oct. 31, 2017. But it turns out that Farak was actually high while running some of those tests. Sonja Farak (left) leaving the courthouse with her lawyer. 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 the civil suit, she filed her own answer to the lawsuit and hired the services of attorney Susan Sachs. A drug chemist in. Farak pleaded guilty to four counts of tampering with evidence, four counts of theft of a controlled substance from an authorized dispensary, and two counts of possession of cocaine in 2014. One thing that How to Fix a Drug Scandal makes clear is that it wasnt all Sonja Faraks fault. By some accounts, she is 68 years old. She is not active on any social media platform and has kept her distance from the press. YouTube Though the four-part documentary series interviews some of Farak's family members, she does not appear in it herself. Shes a high school graduate. She was caught when it was discovered she was high on LSD while testing samples from. The newest true crime series from Netflix, How to Fix a Drug Scandal, was released on April 1, 2020. March 9, 2021 Greater Boston Eight years since disgraced chemist Sonja Farak was arrested for tampering with evidence at a Massachusetts drug lab, the effects of her actions are still unfolding. As a teenager, she had attempted suicide. On top of that, it was also ensured that no analyst would ever work without supervision. October 6, 2020 All Things Considered. 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. Why did she do that and where has it left her? 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. When Sonja graduated high school in 1996, she didnt just receive various varsity letters for sports. I mean she could have been my client. At one point, Westcott said she faced incarceration because of unpaid court costs. The district attorneys in Norfolk, Middlesex, Essex, Suffolk, Hampden and Northwest counties have dismissed charges in about 6,000 cases linked to Farak. 1. The filmmaker told Oxygen.com that she spent a lot of time thinking about Farak and trying to humanize her. Farak was in her mid-thirties at the time. Sadly, theirs weren't the greatest crimes in this real-life drama. In January 2014, she pleaded guilty to evidence tampering and drug possession. Read More: Where is Sonja Farak Sister Now? While Farak kept her drug use isolated to work only at first, her use still spilled out. She remained a football fan, and loved the Patriots. Each person who has had a case dismissed will receive at least $150. The settlement also covers relatives of deceased class members. Westcott has been in recovery from heroin addiction for nearly nine years. 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. Sonja Farak, who worked as a chemist at the Amherst drug lab since 2004, was arrested in January 2013 after one of her co-workers noticed samples were missing from evidence. Unfortunately, Stanley passed away in 2015. Towards the end of the docuseries, we see her coming to terms with Sonjas indiscretions. 2. The four-part documentary focuses on Dookhan and an independent case of fraud in the drug lab by Sonja Farak. "No reasonable individual could have failed to appreciate the unlawfulness of [Kaczmarek's] actions in these circumstances," Robertson wrote in her ruling. Farak began her drug use by experimenting with liquid methamphetamine, but her addiction quickly grew and she began using other drugs including cocaine, and crack, which she smoked in her drug lab's bathroom, per Rolling Stone. Farak was well (Long, 2021) educated, participated in sports, was married, owned a home, did not have a criminal record, and held a respectable job . She has been under arrest since 2013 under drug abuse charges. After serving for 13 months, she was released on parole in 2015. In a sweeping decision issued on Thursday, Oct. 11, the Supreme Judicial Court dismissed with prejudice every methamphetamine-related conviction from the nine years that former chemist Sonja Farak worked at the Amherst lab, as well as all cases involving drug tests from that lab from Jan. 1, 2009 through Jan. 18, 2013. It's Boston local news in one concise, fun and informative email. She really did, at certain times, tried to stop doing this but couldnt.. She has pledged to dismiss Suffolk County drug convictions an estimated 74,800 for anyone whose drug certification was done at the Hinton Lab between May 2003 and August 2012. However, from the docuseries, it is clear that she remains in touch with her daughters. That is as much public exposure as shes opened herself up to since her release from jail. Sonja Farak was a chemist for a state crime lab in Massachusetts. Netflix's latest documentary series, How to Fix a Drug Scandal, focuses on the story of Sonja Farak, a former Massachusetts crime lab chemist who was found to be abusing the drugs she was . Join us. Regarding the cases that she had handled, the Massachusetts courts threw out every case in the Amherst lab during her tenure. For her wrongdoing, Farak served 18 months in prison and was released in 2015. 45 Year Olds. We were unable to subscribe you to WBUR Today. Sonja Farak, a chemist with a longterm mental health struggle, is the catalyst of the story, but it doesn't end with her. If Farak found a substance was a true drug, the person it was confiscated from could be convicted of a substance-related crime. A majority of the report focused on Kaczmarek, who was primarily in charge of the day-to-day handling of the Farak prosecution. 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. Her reporting focuses on mental health, criminal justice and education. Farak's findings, and occasional testimony at court about her testing, was used as evidence to convict the person who had been arrested. She had been accused of intentional infliction of emotional distress in addition to the conspiracy to violate [Penates] civil rights.. Sonja Farak, left, stands during her arraignment at Eastern Hampshire District Court in Belchertown, Mass. It was a slippery slope from there, as Sonja went from cocaine to crack cocaine and even LSD. I think that this is really painful and difficult that her case is getting re-examined in sort of a public way because, you know, when you put things on a network like Netflix, people are going to talk about it.". Farak, a chemist, was later convicted of stealing drugs from the state lab in Amherst. Powered by. She married Nikki Lee. In 2018, all of the criminal convictions more than 10,000 that Farak worked on were dismissed. Don Treeger/The Republican via AP, Pool, File. Penate alleged Kaczmarek's actions violated his "Brady rights," which require prosecutors to turn over potentially exculpatory evidence to defense counsel. Before her sentencing, Farak failed a drug test while. Her parents were described as loving, and somewhat strict. "Not only did I already put my life on hold for the years that I was using, but now I was ready to be a functional member of society and I was blocked from doing that because of these charges," Westcott said. 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. I was like, 'Why are they going to incarcerate me for money?' The last contact information provided by her, in response to Penates allegations, placed her residence in Hatfield, Massachusetts. "If she puts her mind to something, she can do it, Amy told the producers of How to Fix a Drug Scandal.. She tested . People Also Viewed . Thats when she found a home working at a lab in the Morrill Science Building on the UMass Amherst campus. She was sentenced to 18 months behind bars, followed by five years of probation and 500 hours of community services, the same year. 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. that she spent a lot of time thinking about Farak and trying to humanize her. Furthermore, she said she has been grappling with how the docuseries may have affected Faraks life. The state and attorneys for some of the defendants agreed to a $14 million settlement to reimburse 31,000 defendants for post conviction-related costs, such as probation and parole fees, drug analysis and GPS monitoring. 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. According to the Daily Hampshire Gazette, Farak graduated with awards and distinctions. Netflix's latest .css-7qz8rz{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-thickness:0.0625rem;text-decoration-color:#f7623b;text-underline-offset:0.25rem;color:inherit;-webkit-transition:background 0.4s;transition:background 0.4s;background:linear-gradient(#ffffff, #ffffff 50%, #feebe7 50%, #feebe7);-webkit-background-size:100% 200%;background-size:100% 200%;}.css-7qz8rz:hover{color:#000000;text-decoration-color:border-link-body-hover;-webkit-background-position:100% 100%;background-position:100% 100%;}true crime docuseries, How to Fix a Drug Scandal tells the true story surrounding Farak's misbehavior and its consequences.