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Since her release, she has kept a low profile and managed to stay out of the public eye. In a news conference Sunday regarding Faraks arrest, Coakley noted that unlike our allegations against Annie Dookhan, this did not involve dry labbing or falsification of tests. Your effort and contribution in providing this feedback is much (Approx.) Despite being a star child of the family, Sonja suffered from the mental illnesses that haunted her even in adulthood. In fact, she was the first girl in the state of Rhode Island to play high school football in a public school system. (857) 321-8360dmarx@fickmarx.comwfick@fickmarx.com. In 2013, Massachusetts State Police arrested 35-year-old crime drug lab chemist Sonja Farak for tampering with evidence: and that was only the beginning. Massachusetts chemist accused of tampering with evidence, drug possession, Sonja Farak took heroin, cocaine from evidence inventory, attorney general alleges, Another chemist was accused of tampering, affecting 34,000 drug cases, in October. She is not active on any social media platform and has kept her distance from the press. She is a decent height with good physical . Because she did so, Plaintiff served more than five years in a state prison.". Since Farak makes one half of the scandal, heres what you need to know about what she did and where she is now. Farak, a chemist, was later convicted of stealing drugs from the state lab in Amherst. An investigation was immediately launched. Its almost as if somebody would take the worst part of my life and show it to millions of people., The project has brought up issues Carr is still dealing with. The four-part Netflix series goes deep into the story of a man named Rolando Penate, a case Farak had handled at the lab. In addition, the two antagonists of the story were two women - prosecutors who made it impossible for the convicts to be rightfully released from prison. Her first doc was Thought Crimes: The Case . The scandal led to the dismissal of thousands of drug convictions. While what she did was immoral, many have been sympathetic to her plight. It is still unknown whether the accusations against Farak will jeopardize other drug cases, and this most recent investigation is ongoing and is being treated separately from Dookhans. 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. 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. As . Here are 10 things everyone completely missed in Netflix's How to Fix a Drug Scandal. She grew up in Portsmouth with her sister Amy . 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. [7], How to Fix a Drug Scandal was released on April 1, 2020, on Netflix.[2]. 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. 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. One of the reasons for the decrepit state and standard of the Amherst lab was the lack of funds. She said, It was about coping; it certainly wasnt about having fun; I dont think shes had fun in quite a while.. 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They wrote that she served 13 months and was paroled sometime in 2015. In one instance, it appeared that Farak had removed a substance from a case that had previously tested positive for cocaine and replaced it with a counterfeit substance that no longer tested positive, the release said. From 2004 to 2013, Farak took benefit of the labs lack of supervision and stole the drugs cops had seized. In 2019, the chemist was spotted at federal court in Springfield, MA , attending a civil case. Sonja Farak is at the center of Netflix's new true crime docuseries, How To Fix a Drug Scandal. She received an 18-month jail sentence. If you need assistance, please contact the Executive Office of the Trial Court. According to the ACLU, she became a voice for the ACLU in 2012, which is right around the time when the Sonja Farak case exploded. In 2004, she was transferred to the Amherst Lab where . The lawsuit names Kaczmarek, Farak and three members of the state police. Discovery Company. Rolling Stone covered both drug lab scandals in 2018 and uncovered that Farak had undergone from depression for many years. A majority of the report focused on Kaczmarek, who was primarily in charge of the day-to-day handling of the Farak prosecution. This is whenMatt Segal reveals a T-shirt to commemorate their time on this case. The newest true crime series from Netflix, How to Fix a Drug Scandal, was released on April 1, 2020. Netflix released a new docu-series called "How to Fix a Drug Scandal." 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.. 2023 Cinemaholic Inc. All rights reserved. Lets find out. 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. She started off doing drugs at work regularly she worked while on meth, liquid amphetamine, LSD, coke and crack. Moreover, more than 24,000 cases ended up being dismissed due to Faraks misconduct. She was trying to suppress mental health issues, depression in specific, and she attempted to kill herself in high school, according to Rolling Stone. 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. 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. Sonja Farak, of Northampton, a former chemist at the state crime lab in Amherst, appears in Hampshire Superior Court in Northampton in April 2013 for her arraignment on multiple counts of evidence . She has kept a low profile but has been spotted in court for civil cases related to her own case, including in 2018. Former chemist Annie Dookhan was convicted in 2013 on charges of improperly testing drug evidence at a drug lab in Boston. Disgraced former state lab chemist Sonja Farak leaves federal court in Springfield. She worked there for a year but soon understood she wouldnt make sufficient money there in the Boston area to buy a house. Thank you for your website feedback! Magistrate Judge Robertson denied a request in Penate's lawsuit that Kaczmarek be prohibited from contesting the special hearing officer's findings. 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. In How To Fix A Drug Scandal, we learn about Sonja Farak, who was arrested in 2013 on counts of evidence tampering. While attending college, she met her longtime partner Nikki Lee. 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. Episode 1. A Warner Bros. Sonja Farak pleaded guilty to stealing samples of drugs from an Amherst drug lab. According to IMDb, shes appeared in HBOs High Maintenance and will star as Angie in Make America Bake Again, which is currently in production. We were unable to subscribe you to WBUR Today. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. She tested . Between 2003 and 2011, chemist Annie Dookhan engaged in serious misconduct at a state drug lab that jeopardized the integrity of over 20,000 cases in Eastern Massachusetts. Kaczmarek failed to disclose information and intentionally misrepresented the evidence she had, and worked to actively shut down inquiry and deflect zealous work by Farak defendants counsel who were doing their jobs by requesting evidence of Faraks misconduct, according to the report. Tens of thousands of criminal drug cases were dismissed as a result of misconduct by Dookhan and Farak. How to Fix a Drug Scandal premiered on Netflix April 1, and it has told the compelling stories of Sonja Farak and Annie Dookhan. Sonja Farak is the former state drug lab chemist featured in Netflix's "How to Fix a Scandal." (The Massachusetts 2017 group exoneration involving chemist Annie Dookhan took place at the main lab.) In 2019, she was seen leaving the Springfield Federal Court but declined to comment on the status of the case. Her reporting focuses on mental health, criminal justice and education. The charges against Penate were dismissed after Farak's conviction. She disclosed to her therapist that all the drugs she was consuming came from her workplace. If you would like to continue helping us improve Mass.gov, join our user panel to test new features for the site. This arrest comes just three months after the arrest of Annie Dookhan, a former Massachusetts chemist at the William A. Hinton State Laboratory in Jamaica Plain, who is charged with obstruction of justice, mishandling of drug evidence and lying about holding a masters degree in chemistry from the University of Massachusetts. Farak was smoking crack 10 to 12 times a day. 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. But there are also some things audiences may have missed on their first viewing. She was also her classs co-valedictorian. 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