It seems that the rogue chemist whose falsified drug testing tainted 1000’s of courtroom circumstances was not the “sole bad actor” within the scandal, new data reveal.
Middlesex Superior Court Judge Patrick M. Haggan this week unsealed 9 units of data that present the Office of the Inspector General had referred chemists and supervisors of the Hinton State Laboratory Institute in Jamaica Plain — aside from Annie Dookhan — for potential legal prosecution.
In the scandal’s wake, then-Gov. Deval Patrick shut down the Hinton Lab and prosecutors have been compelled to overturn convictions and solely prosecute the relative handful of affected circumstances that might probably be received with out the drug lab proof. The roughly 31,000 defendants have been awarded $14 million in a class-action settlement final June.
The new data exhibits that then-Inspector General Glenn Cunha had already referred not less than one different chemist for doable legal prosecution even earlier than his workplace issued its March 2014 investigative report that discovered that one rogue chemist, Dookhan, had acted alone.
“The comprehensive review found that, other than Dookhan, no chemist intentionally falsified his or her test results, nor did Dookhan tamper with other chemists’ test results,” the OIG wrote in its report abstract then. It continued, “however, chronic managerial negligence, inadequate training and a lack of professional standards created the environment that allowed Dookhan to commit her crimes.”
Cunha subsequently referred not less than three extra chemists or supervisors from the Hinton Lab. The alleged misconduct included mendacity to investigators, mislabeling substances as medication — together with a nut — and placing unlawful medication into samples that didn’t truly include them.
The scandal rocked two successive Massachusetts attorneys basic. The scandal occurred first below AG Martha Coakley after which below now-Gov. Maura Healey. This brand-new disclosure of others who can also be accountable now falls below new-AG Andrea Campbell, who stated Tuesday that her workplace will “look into” what they will do with the knowledge.
“This has covered two attorneys general before me, over two previous administrations, so I’m getting a handle on it. I will of course continue to follow the guidance of the court,” Campbell stated throughout an interview on Boston Public Radio on WGBH at 1 p.m.
“But I can say this: that the mantra and one value in the office will always be transparency and justice, frankly,” she added. “And we have an opportunity when we get more guidance from the court to really look at how do we right the wrongs in these types of cases, how do we be forthcoming and how do we go after justice.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com”