Sonja Farak worked at the crime lab in Amherst MA. She was tampering with the drugs she was testing. She would alter samples, fake test results, and list some tests as positive even when she did not test them. Before working in the lab, Sonja was a very bright and athletic student. She was the co-valedictorian of her high school and the first girl in the state of Rhode Island to play on a high school football team. No one imagined someone like her could ever commit these crimes.
The Amherst lab where she worked was severely underfunded making it easy for malpractice to slip through the cracks. Because she was so overworked, in an attempt to give herself an energy boost, Sonja tried a little bit of liquid meth from the evidence in the lab. This eventually led to her being addicted. I was surprised that a crime lab was so severely underfunded. However, this makes sense when considering how little funding there is for public defense lawyers and how much work they have.
I was surprised that Farak began taking drugs from the lab. However, because the lab was so severely underfunded, it makes sense why she believed she would not get caught. Additionally, if she was so bored with her job, why did she not consider taking another position? The fallout from this type of behavior was that every case that Sonja tested substances for had to be re-examined. Some people that Farak tested for may have actually been innocent. This would inevitably create a backlog in crime labs because new cases would not just stop coming in even though analysts had to retest the substances that Farak originally tested.
Although Farak should by no means be exempt from her crimes, I believe if there had been better funding and more supervision at the Amherst crime lab, this never would have happened. Someone should not be able to perform such important tasks that have severe implications in another person’s life without being checked by another person. There should have been someone in the lab at all times to ensure quality work was being done. Additionally, if the crime lab had more employees, Sonja may not have felt so overworked and not have turned to drugs in the first place. (382)