"A federal jury on Monday rejected an effort to hold state officials
financially liable for the wrongdoing of Annie Dookhan, the former drug
lab chemist who admitted to tampering with evidence in hundreds of
cases. A Boston man who served two and a half years in prison
based on evidence handled by Dookhan sued three of Dookhan’s former
supervisors at the Department of Public Health Hinton laboratory,
alleging they were negligent for failing to notice and report her
wrongdoing. After just over three hours of deliberations, the federal jury
delivered a verdict in favor of the defendants: Julie Nassif, who
oversaw the Division of Analytical Chemistry within the Department of
Public Health at the time of Dookhan’s crimes; Linda Han, who was the
director of the crime lab; and Charles Salemi, who was the supervisor of
operations. Lawyers for the defendants said the verdict will
likely set the standard for similar lawsuits against their clients in
the future. “What the evidence in this case showed is these
supervisors conducted themselves in a reasonable, appropriate manner,”
said Paul Kelly, who represented Han, who now works for Vertex
Pharmaceuticals. "These defendants lacked any knowledge of the misdeeds of Ms. Dookhan." Michael
Grace, who represented Salemi, who is now retired, added, “A very
dedicated public servant has been vindicated in this case.” Michael L. Tumposky, a Boston lawyer who represented the plaintiff, David Jones, said he was disappointed with the outcome. “What
happened in the drug lab was wrong, and people in the drug lab needed
to be held accountable,” said Tumposky, adding that he believes the
lawsuit was successful in continuing to shine a light on the state’s
drug lab scandal. Dookhan, a chemist with the Department of
Public Health from roughly 2003 to 2012, admitted in 2013 that she
falsified drug tests by labeling substances as drugs even if she never
tested them; mixing substances with drugs so that they tested positive;
or misrepresenting the weight of substances, which affected the outcome
of criminal cases. Her wrongdoing was only detected after the
State Police, while in the process of merging the state’s drug testing
laboratory with the state crime laboratory, conducted an audit of the
lab in 2012. Dookhan at first lied about her misdeeds but later
claimed she was only trying to boost her job performance. She is serving
a 3- to 5-year prison sentence. Tens of thousands of cases that
had evidence tested by Dookhan immediately became subject to review, a
process that is ongoing. Hundreds of defendants have been released from
prison. Jones, the plaintiff in the federal lawsuit, had his
conviction for selling crack cocaine overturned based on Dookhan’s
involvement in testing drug evidence. An Office of Inspector General report also found a pattern of
mismanagement at the Jamaica Plain laboratory that allowed Dookhan’s
wrongdoing to go undetected. Former Department of Public Health Commissioner John Auerbach resigned amid the scandal. Several
federal lawsuits have been filed seeking damages against Dookhan and
her supervisors; the Jones case was the first to go to trial.