On April 18, 2017, Massachusetts dropped more than 21,000 low-level drug criminal charges involving state lab tech Annie Dookhan. Out of the 15,570 cases involved in her work only about 115 were pursued.
Now, less than a year and a half later, we have the same scenario with Sonja Farak. Per the latest MA Lawyers Weekly, the Special Master appointed to this fiasco reports dismissals of more than 16,000 drug cases:
"By: Kris Olson September 26, 2019
Culminating work that had begun when he was appointed special master by the Supreme Judicial Court on Feb. 28, 2018, retired Appeals Court Judge Judd J. Carhart reported on Sept. 23 that 24,295 charges in more than 16,000 cases had been dismissed due to the misconduct of former state drug lab chemist Sonja Farak.
After initially ordering the dismissal with prejudice of all cases in which Farak had signed the certificate of analysis, the SJC later enlarged the class of defendants entitled to relief due to Farak's misconduct to include defendants who had pleaded guilty to a drug charge, had admitted to sufficient facts on a drug charge, or had been found guilty of a drug charge where the conviction was based on methamphetamine and the drugs were tested during Farak's tenure at the Amherst lab, or the drugs were tested at the Amherst lab on or after Jan. 1, 2009, and through Jan. 18, 2013, regardless of who signed the certificate of analysis."
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