Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Bulletin: Kamal Shah: New Jersey; Allegations of corrupt drug-testing: Lawyer George Daggett says he has filed a tort claim notice with the state on behalf of a dozen clients whose cases were handled by the state police lab where a Kamal Shah, a technician, was found to be not properly analyzing drug samples. " The notice reads: "Kamal Shah deliberately misrepresented drug testing results. The other defendants either allowed Shah to misrepresent drug testing results or were negligent in supervising him since his criminal acts were accomplished over a long period of time. The veracity of the entire Little Falls laboratory procedure as to quality control is called into question."..." In a Feb. 22 letter to every county prosecutor in the state, Eli Honig, the director of the Division of Criminal Justice for the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General, said that Shah "failed to appropriately conduct laboratory analyses of evidence in a drug case." Honig additionally said, "He was removed from case work analysis in December 2015. Mr. Shah was observed in one case spending insufficient time analyzing a substance to determine if it was marijuana and recording an anticipated result without properly conducting the analysis." In a memo to the state's Office of the Public Defender, Judy Fallon, the deputy public defender for Passaic County, said Shah was "found to have ‘dry labbed' suspected CDS specimens." "Basically he was observed writing ‘test results' for suspected marijuana that was never tested," Fallon said in the memo. Sussex County First Assistant Prosecutor Gregory Mueller previously said that his office identified "more than 260 cases that were potentially impacted" by Shah dating back to 2005. "Where is the oversight?" Daggett said. "It's not only about what Shah did, but what everyone did in Little Falls. Who was checking on Shah? Was that person checking on other people? The whole operation is in jeopardy."

 
"A local attorney has filed a tort claim notice with the state that he intends to file a lawsuit on behalf of a dozen clients whose cases were handled by the state police lab where a technician was found to be not properly analyzing drug samples. The notice, filed by George T. Daggett on Friday afternoon, names former forensic scientist Kamal Shah, the state Office of the Attorney General, the New Jersey State Police, the superintendent of the New Jersey State Police Col. Rick Fuentes and the New Jersey State Police Office of Forensic Sciences North Region-Drug Unit. "Nobody is messing with my clients," Daggett said. "My clients are good people. They certainly weren't treated in a manner that I would expect from the state of New Jersey." The 12 clients were only identified using their initials in the tort claim notice. The notice reads: "Kamal Shah deliberately misrepresented drug testing results. The other defendants either allowed Shah to misrepresent drug testing results or were negligent in supervising him since his criminal acts were accomplished over a long period of time. The veracity of the entire Little Falls laboratory procedure as to quality control is called into question." In a Feb. 22 letter to every county prosecutor in the state, Eli Honig, the director of the Division of Criminal Justice for the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General, said that Shah "failed to appropriately conduct laboratory analyses of evidence in a drug case." Honig additionally said, "He was removed from case work analysis in December 2015. Mr. Shah was observed in one case spending insufficient time analyzing a substance to determine if it was marijuana and recording an anticipated result without properly conducting the analysis." In a memo to the state's Office of the Public Defender, Judy Fallon, the deputy public defender for Passaic County, said Shah was "found to have ‘dry labbed' suspected CDS specimens." "Basically he was observed writing ‘test results' for suspected marijuana that was never tested," Fallon said in the memo. Sussex County First Assistant Prosecutor Gregory Mueller previously said that his office identified "more than 260 cases that were potentially impacted" by Shah dating back to 2005. "Where is the oversight?" Daggett said. "It's not only about what Shah did, but what everyone did in Little Falls. Who was checking on Shah? Was that person checking on other people? The whole operation is in jeopardy.".........The Attorney General's Office previously said Shah's conduct was discovered on Dec. 12, 2015, and he was suspended without pay on Jan. 12. Shah then retired in February. His salary at the time of retirement was $101,039 per year.
Shah worked on 7,827 cases in his 10-year-stint in the North Regional Lab."