Mass. DAs Drop Thousands Of Cases Handled By Disgraced Chemist

District attorneys in Middlesex, Suffolk, Essex, Northwestern and Hampden counties announced Thursday they have initiated the process of dropping thousands of drug cases handled by former state lab chemist Sonja Farak. Farak pleaded guilty in 2014 to drug charges after admitting to regularly working under the influence of drugs, stealing drugs from police-submitted evidence, and manufacturing crack cocaine at the Amherst Drug Lab.

Several districts have not yet said how many cases they intend to toss, but the ACLU of Massachusetts and the state's public defender agency told the Associated Press that prosecutors could ultimately dismiss more than 6,000 convictions tied to Farak.

The office of Northwestern District Attorney David Sullivan, which counts Amherst among its jurisdiction, dismissed 1,497 cases on Thursday, a spokesperson said.

Authorities said Farak was high "almost every day" throughout her eight-year career at the drug lab. She started siphoning from drug samples submitted by police in late 2009, and began regularly stealing from them in 2011. Farak testified that she sought counseling for substance abuse around this time, "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.

The Hampden County District Attorney's office said it would dismiss almost 4,000 cases involving Farak, the Boston Globe reported, citing numbers from the ACLU of Massachusetts.

Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley's office on Thursday announced 134 dropped cases. Conley last year said he would not challenge a finding that Farak, a civilian employee of the Department of Public Health, committed "egregious misconduct."

"Given the nature and extent of her misconduct, re-testing the substances at issue is unlikely to yield a reliable result," Conley said. "The most appropriate step is to notify the court that we will not pursue any further litigation in any of the identified cases."

A spokesperson for Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan said the office has formally agreed to dismiss charges in 245 cases – 238 in District Court and seven in Superior Court – and will work alongside the Supreme Judicial Court to ensure that all defendants have their convictions vacated.

Essex County District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett's office has not yet finalized its list of dropped cases, but a spokesperson said there are "less than 500."

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

In this Jan. 22, 2013, file photo, Sonja Farak, left, stands during her arraignment at Eastern Hampshire District Court in Belchertown, Mass. Assistant Hampden County District Attorney Bethany Lynch said Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2017, in a Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court hearing, that approximately 4,300 cases have been connected to evidence tested by Farak, who was convicted in 2014 of stealing drugs and tampering with evidence at the lab. Lynch said her office is deciding which cases it will agree to dismiss and which to retry. (Don Treeger/The Republican via AP, Pool, File)