Bulletin: Sonja Farak; Massachusetts: Independent investigation to probe allegations by defence lawyers that the attorney general’s office under Martha Coakley deliberately withheld evidence in the case of a fired Amherst chemist who stole drugs from a state lab. "Not only do defense lawyers contend that Farak’s own words should warrant a wholesale review of the 29,000 samples that she claimed to have tested during her career, but they also allege the government deliberately concealed the “smoking gun” evidence that ultimately led to their discovery in the first place." Boston Globe;

"Sonja Farak pleaded guilty to tampering with a handful of drugs, but defense attorneys say the problem was wider..........Allegations by defense lawyers that the attorney general’s office under Martha Coakley deliberately withheld evidence are among the potential focuses of a state investigation into the scope of wrongdoing in the case of a fired Amherst chemist who stole drugs from a state lab. “Any and all accusations, I certainly have to listen to. I certainly have to digest. And then I have to go search for the truth,” said retired Superior Court Judge Peter A. Velis, who has been appointed by current Attorney General Maura Healey to examine the case of former chemist Sonja Farak. “This is going to be a neutral, impartial, and transparent investigation.”.........Farak pleaded guilty in January 2014 to tampering with a handful of drug samples at the now-shuttered Amherst lab, and served an 18-month sentence. She was prosecuted by Coakley, and officials had insisted at the time that there was no evidence that other cases were affected. But in April, the state’s highest court found that top state law enforcement officials had failed to fully investigate the scope of Farak’s wrongdoing, and gave officials 30 days to decide whether to reopen the inquiry into thousands of evidence samples tested by Farak. Healey appointed Velis after the court’s ruling. By then, defense attorneys were already hunting for more evidence, and two of them, Luke Ryan and Rebecca Jacobstein, obtained Farak’s counseling records, in which she told therapists she had been feeding her own addiction to cocaine, methamphetamine, and other drugs by using drug evidence as far back as 2004. Not only do defense lawyers contend that Farak’s own words should warrant a wholesale review of the 29,000 samples that she claimed to have tested during her career, but they also allege the government deliberately concealed the “smoking gun” evidence that ultimately led to their discovery in the first place. “It’s outrageous,” said Jacobstein, who, along with Ryan, represents defendants whose drug evidence was believed to have been tested by Farak. “It’s mind-boggling. That they had this stuff, and didn’t tell the court.”"
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/07/08/investigation-into-amherst-drug-lab-could-include-look-whether-office-withheld-evidence/dBgnaYKBlY4vHIG6drdIRP/story.html