STORY: "Sonja Farak pleads not guilty to evidence tampering at state police lab in Amherst," by reporter Jim Russell, published in the Republican on January 22, 2013.
GIST: "Sonja Farak, the chemist accused of evidence tampering and stealing heroin and cocaine at the state crime lab in Amherst where she works, pleaded not guilty Tuesday at her arraignment in Eastern Hampshire District Court. Judge John Payne set bail at $5,000. Farak's arrest led to the temporary closing of the facility last week. Farak, 35, of Northampton, is charged with two counts of evidence tampering and one count each of heroin and cocaine possession -- the drug types that she allegedly stole. The lab analyzes illicit drugs seized in crimes. Farak is the second state chemist facing criminal charges for allegedly compromising drugs that had been seized as evidence by police departments. Annie Dookhan, another state chemist employed at the Boston crime lab faces 27 charges for allegedly ruining drug-evidence. Authorities estimate that several thousand cases have been compromised......... Hampden District Attorney Mark G. Mastroianni said Tuesday the arrest of Farak does cause a serious problem for his office. “Today there were several cases on the trial list that were ready for trial in which she (Farak) was a named witness. Obviously she’s not available,” he said. He said his office is informing both the District Court and Superior Court they are not prepared to go to trial on those now. “We’ve asked for a two week stay to report back to the court as to what we will do with all of these cases after we have had a chance to assess the material being produced by the Attorney General’s Office to show us what their investigation revealed,” Mastroianni said. His office needs to assess how many samples of drugs were at the Amherst laboratory during the time Farak was employed there; and to assess how many samples Farak had access to. He needs to assess how many samples were in fact interfered with by Farak. The review needs to include how many cases in the past - not just in the recent past - going back several years that this chemist may have been involved in, Mastroianni said. He said State Police have taken into custody all samples that were at the Amherst laboratory. There will be a determination as to how many remained unopened. When evidence goes to the lab the bag is heat-sealed, he said. Those unopened will be brought to another state laboratory for testing, he said. “This is going to be a long procedure,” Mastroianni said."
The entire story can be found at:
http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2013/01/sonja_farak_pleads_not_guilty.html
PUBLISHER'S NOTE
I have added a search box for content in this blog which now encompasses several thousand posts. The search box is located near the bottom of the screen just above the list of links. I am confident that this powerful search tool provided by "Blogger" will help our readers and myself get more out of the site.
The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/
Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.
Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.