The drug lab scandall and it's lingering effects on the tax payers

As our readers will attest, this subject of the drug lab scandal has been written about on this blog extensively. Way back I wrote that the State would be on the hook for the expenses the scandal has created. At this point, thanks to a SJC ruling from Colorado that ordered the State to refund fees to woman who was convicted but later acquitted of felony drug charges.  Our State now is looking at a price tag of maybe 10 million to pay back. But where does that money come from you ask? in comes Beacon Hill who will have to address this with a funding source. This also means, the money confiscated in many cases by the local cops must be paid back but as we know, it's already been spent or stolen. There is a case here in Framingham Court involving Stephanie Green who had her convictions vacated in 2017.
The lack of accountability and oversight has made this mess and now the tax payers will be on the hook to pay those people who have had their cases vacated. And what about the assets that have been taken, auctioned off? Cars, boats, jewelry, guns, homes?

From the Globe:

By Danny McDonald Globe Staff  September 12, 2018

 

An assistant state attorney general estimates it could cost “north of $10 million” to reimburse fees and fines of defendants whose convictions were thrown out because of a pair of drug lab scandals in Massachusetts, court records show.
Answering a question from a state Supreme Court justice, Robert E. Toone said he thought the state would have to pay “a large amount of money” to defendants to compensate them for fines and fees they had to pay because of their convictions.
Tens of thousands of convictions have been vacated because of the misconduct of Annie Dookhan, a former chemist at the state’s Hinton drug lab in Jamaica Plain, and another former chemist, Sonja Farak, who worked at an Amherst drug lab.
“I would imagine, once you combine the Dookhan-Farak defendants, it’s probably north of $10 million,” Toone said during an appearance before the state’s high court on Friday. “That is only my personal estimate.”

On Friday, the court heard two cases together in which defendants’ convictions were vacated in connection with Dookhan’s misconduct.

One of the cases was out of Haverhill, in which Jose A. Martinez had three drug convictions vacated and the charges dismissed because of Dookhan’s malfeasance, according to court filings. The other matter arose from two cases involving Stephanie Green out of Framingham District Court. Green had convictions vacated in 2017 because of an SJC ruling related to the Dookhan scandal, according to court filings.