Mass Chemist Sends Hundreds Of Thousands To Jail By Forging Tests. Gets Measly 3-5 Years, Cooperating DA Gets Free Pass

Massachusetts Crime Lab Scandal Reveals Drug War Corruption

December 4, 2013 by Bob Livingston 

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PHOTOS.COM

There is big money in the drug war for Federal agencies and State and local police forces.

I have told you before that the so-called war on drugs is a sham and a scam, and it corrupts Federal agencies and all police forces. American prisons and cemeteries are overflowing with victims of the faux drug war.

There are more than 2.4 million people in U.S. prisons. That’s more than one out of every 100 Americans, and that number has more than quadrupled since 1980. The most serious charge against 51 percent of those in Federal prisons is a drug offense. In State prisons, one in five prisoners is being incarcerated over a drug offense.

There is now a breaking scandal in Massachusetts that reveals how corrupt the war on drugs actually is. Annie Dookhan, a chemist with the Massachusetts crime lab, has been caught conspiring with prosecutors in that State to falsify drug evidence by tampering with samples and intentionally forging signatures. As many as 40,000 cases may have had their evidence tainted by Dookhan.

Dookhan, who recently pleaded guilty to all 27 counts of altering drug evidence and obstructing justice that prosecutors had filed against her, was a crime lab chemist for nine years. Her tampered evidence has put thousands of innocent people behind bars, and thousands more have had their sentences lengthened based on her fake “evidence.”

The Boston Globe published emails that demonstrated the cozy relationship Dookhan had with prosecutors. In one exchange with Norfolk Assistant District Attorney George Papachristos (who resigned in October after the Globe disclosed his flirtatious friendship with Dookhan), the chemist apparently was more than willing to acquiesce to the prosecutor’s request to inflate the size of a marijuana sample so that its owners could be charged with trafficking. The emails also show Dookhan was prone to fabrications, repeat­edly making up grandiose job titles for herself, such as “special agent of operations” for the FBI and other Federal agencies.

Following Dookhan’s guilty plea, a second Massachusetts crime lab “chemist” has been fired after investigators determined she had fabricated her educational credentials. Kate Corbett worked alongside Dookhan and testified as a “chemistry expert” in dozens of court cases that led to convictions — even though her degree is in sociology. Defense attorneys argue that as many 180,000 Massachusetts drug cases may be tainted by the two women’s actions.

“I screwed up big time. I messed up. I messed up bad. It’s my fault. I don’t want the lab to get in trouble,” Dookhan was reported as saying. Her “screwup” resulted in prosecutors and drug cops getting promotions and glowing headlines for drug convictions and their agencies getting an increasing pile of tax dollars while their wrongly convicted victims lost their families, their livelihoods and years of their lives.

And for that Dookhan is facing just three to five years in the pen while Papachristos has been cleared of any wrongdoing. The elected class are not interested in justice, and they always protect their own.