More than 8,000 drug convictions are likely to be thrown out after a former Massachusetts chemist admitted to using the drugs she was supposed to be testing.
On Friday, authorities announced that they would be tossing out more than 8,000 convictions that were tainted because Sonja Farak, a chemist at the Massachusetts Crime Laboratory in Amherst, used the drugs that she was supposed to be testing almost every day that she worked, the Daily Mail reports.
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The announcements came after the American Civil Liberties Union and Massachusetts public defender agency asked the state’s top court to toss all cases linked to Farak.
Farak had been arrested in 2013 and later pleaded guilty to the charges. She was sentenced to serve 18 months in prison.
This isn’t the first time that the state has been forced to dismiss criminal drug cases due to scandal. In April, prosecutors agreed to dismiss 21,000 cases linked to chemist Annie Dookhan, who admitted to faking tests.
So far, 3,940 cases linked to Farak have been dismissed by the Hampden District Attorney’s office, while Northwestern District Attorney David Sullivan was forced to dismiss 1,497 cases.
It is expected that more county district attorneys will dismiss cases linked to Farak.
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