MA State Chemist Spent 8 Years High on Job, Jeopardizing Thousands of Convictions

Thousands of drug convictions could be tainted in the wake of a state drug lab chemist's long-running addiction, which led to not only using cocaine and other substances at work, but also stealing them from police-submitted evidence and manufacturing crack cocaine at the lab, according to a state investigation released this week.

Amherst Drug Lab's Sonja Farak, 37, of Northampton, allegedly worked under the influence of methamphetamine, cocaine and LSD over the course of eight years, some of which she stole from police-submitted samples, based on testimony by a Massachusetts State Police officer, other lab chemists, and Farak herself. The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts is arguing the state should throw out drug convictions on which Farak performed the drug analysis, based on that report.

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The testimony, presented in a recently released investigative report from the state attorney general's office, details the progression of Farak's addiction, which took root with recreational use in college. The investigation was ordered by the state's Supreme Judicial Court last year.

According to Farak's own testimony, she regularly worked under the influence from about 2004 up until early 2013, when she was arrested. She started siphoning from drug samples submitted to the lab by police in late 2009, and began regularly stealing from them in 2011. It was about this time, Farak testified, that she sought counseling on substance abuse, "when attempts at self-control were not successful."

Most of those samples were forms of methamphetamine and cocaine, in addition to at least one incident involving the theft of LSD, a powerful hallucinogen that Farak testified temporarily incapacitated her.

Farak said her productivity and the accuracy of her testing did not suffer, despite routine use. Her colleagues testified in agreement, supporting her statement that no fellow employees or managers commented on or expressed concern about her behavior.

“I felt amazing. It gave me energy. I felt more alert. I did not wish it(,) but it gave me the pep I was looking for,” Farak said, according to the attorney general's report.

Farak admitted the addiction had taken full control by mid-2012, and estimated "maybe three or four times" that year she entered the lab after-hours to manufacture crack cocaine using lab samples.

During that time, she testified to smoking crack throughout the entire day: “smoking at work, smoking at the lab, smoking at home . . . smoking and driving.” She estimated that she was smoking up to a dozen times per day, and that her colleagues even then remained unaware.

In early 2013, one colleague did notice some missing samples and a search of Farak's desk quickly made clear something was amiss. The lab was shut down that same day and Farak herself was arrested soon after, following the execution of a search warrant on her car, the report said.

The ACLU calls all of this "stunning misconduct" that could impact thousands of cases.

"There is only one sensible response to these revelations: promptly notify the people who were denied due process, undo their wrongful convictions, and rethink the unjust war on drugs," ACLU Massachusetts' Legal Director Matthew R. Segal said in a statement.

Segal drew parallels to a previous case at Massachusetts' Hinton State Laboratory Institute in Jamaica Plain, which saw the arrest of "rogue chemist" Annie Dookhan for tampering with the evidence in thousands of cases.

The question in that instance, as in this, is whether the defendant in drug cases handled by these chemists is entitled to a new trial. Attorneys at the time opted for a case-by-case assessment, rather than a blanket approach.

That question will get another hard look, as Segal and the ACLU argue most convictions should be vacated and dismissed, rather than re-litigated.

A spokeswoman for Attorney General Maura Healey told the Associated Press this information "will no doubt have implications for many cases," but it is unclear how many. One defense attorney told the Boston Herald Farak handled as many as 30,000 cases, and the ACLU believes its scope could rival the 40,000 cases impacted in the Hinton Labs scandal.

Farak pleaded guilty in 2014, and was sentenced to 18 months in prison. She has since served that sentence and been released on probation.