BOSTON (WBZ-AM/AP) - Massachusetts prosecutors will dismiss more than 6,000 convictions tied to a former chemist who authorities say was high almost every day for eight years while she worked at a state drug lab.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts and the state's public defender agency said Thursday that several district attorneys have said they plan to dismiss cases that relied on evidence tested by Sonja Farak.
Farak pleaded guilty in 2014 to stealing cocaine from the state crime lab to feed her own addiction.
The DAs in five counties agreed to drop the cases.
"But that is not all of the cases, therefore, that number is unacceptably low," said Rebecca Jacobstein of the Committee for Public Counsel Services at a press conference Thursday. "Not all injustices can be undone. But tainted convictions can be."
More than half of the cases to be dropped are from Hampden County, including Nicole Westcott's three convictions for drug possession.
"I ended up in jail because, like I said, I was suffering from addiction," Wescott said.
Westcott said that, as an addict herself, she understands Farak.
"You know, she suffered from addiction, and I don't hold any bad feelings against these people, I just want them to be held accountable like I was held accountable," she said.
(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Bernice Corpuz reports