More fallout from the drug lab scandal

I wonder how many more prosecutors from our state courts knew about x drug lab employee Sonja Farak. 

By Shawn Musgrave Globe Correspondent,July 9, 2019, 6:38 p.m.

Three former prosecutors accused of misconduct in drug-lab scandal

This involves the Sonja Farak state drug-lab scandal, not to be confused with the Annie Dookhan state crime-lab scandal. From the Globe’s Shawn Musgrave: “Allegations of official misconduct have been filed against three former state prosecutors related to the Amherst drug-lab scandal. The state body that investigates lawyers alleges the attorneys, two of whom currently work for government agencies, withheld evidence from defendants, district attorneys, and a judge.”

The first attorney facing potential discipline, Anne Kaczmarek, spearheaded the prosecution of Farak. Kaczmarek left the attorney general’s office in 2014 and was employed as an assistant clerk magistrate in Suffolk County until November 2018. The Office of the Bar Counsel claims that Kaczmarek knew about evidence documenting Farak’s therapy for substance abuse and made “materially misleading” statements about this evidence to district attorneys.

In June, a federal appeals court refused to dismiss a lawsuit against Kaczmarek filed by a man who was convicted on drug charges based on Farak’s tainted laboratory analysis. Evidence reviewed by Kaczmarek indicated Farak had used narcotics the day she tested samples in the man’s case. The First Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Kaczmarek’s argument that she was immune from such lawsuits as a government attorney.

 “There were a series of systemic failures in the way the state handled the drug lab scandals,” said Thomas Kiley, Kaczmarek’s attorney. “Holding individual assistant attorneys general responsible for systemic failures is a questionable public policy.”

The second former prosecutor, Kris Foster, was tasked with responding to subpoenas for evidence regarding the state’s criminal investigation of Farak. Foster is currently general counsel at the state Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission.

The bar counsel alleges Foster intentionally misled a judge in September 2013 in a letter suggesting she had reviewed the evidence against Farak and found that all relevant documents were disclosed to drug-case defendants. Foster previously acknowledged her letter was intentionally vague, but said she was following orders from her supervisors in the attorney general’s office.

“It is well settled that a junior lawyer is entitled to follow the reasonable instructions of her supervisor and to rely upon the information provided by her client,” said George Berman, Foster’s attorney. “This is exactly what Ms. Foster did, and she did not violate any ethical rule by doing so.”

Last year, a federal judge threw out a lawsuit filed against Foster by the same plaintiff who is suing Kaczmarek.

The last former prosecutor facing potential discipline, John Verner, supervised both Kaczmarek and Foster as chief of the attorney general’s Criminal Bureau. Verner joined the Suffolk County district attorney’s office in 2016.

The bar counsel alleges Verner failed to take appropriate remedial action once he had become aware that evidence about Farak had not been disclosed.