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Ex-Chemist In Massachusetts Was High On Drugs At Work For 8 Years
Nearly every day for eight years, a former chemist in Massachusetts was high on drugs — drugs stolen from the lab where she worked.
An investigation by the state attorney general found that from 2005 to 2013, Sonja Farak, 37, heavily abused various drugs including cocaine, LSD and methamphetamines and even manufactured her own crack cocaine using lab supplies. Though Farak was arrested in 2013 and sentenced to jail in 2014, the findings from the state's investigation into the scope of her misconduct were just released Tuesday.
During her career as a chemist, Farak worked for two years at the Hinton Lab in Jamaica Plain, Mass., and then for nine years at the state drug lab in Amherst, Mass. According to the attorney general's report, "her responsibilities involved testing, for authenticity, various controlled substances submitted by law enforcement agencies" and testifying "in court as to her test results, which served as evidence in criminal cases."
(Score: 3, Funny) by Sir Finkus on Thursday May 05 2016, @01:49AM
"her responsibilities involved testing, for authenticity, various controlled substances submitted by law enforcement agencies" and testifying "in court as to her test results, which served as evidence in criminal cases."
Sounds like she was just doing her job.
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(Score: 2) by CortoMaltese on Thursday May 05 2016, @04:24AM
*sniff* Flour
*sniff* Powdered sugar
*sniff* OH YEAH THATS THE STUFF
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Friday May 06 2016, @07:16PM
Good quality cocaine can be detected by taste. There are few other powdered narcotics where that works.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 12 2016, @05:43AM
*sniff* TATP explosives
OMG, I think I'm going to sneeze... KABOOM!!!
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday May 13 2016, @09:40PM
But then ... [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday May 09 2016, @09:20PM
Nearly every day for eight years, a former chemist in Massachusetts was high on drugs
Honestly if I were selling on the side, if it were at all believable quantities such that one dude could consume it all, and I got busted selling, the official story would certainly be that "I used it all my self personally officer never sold or shared a bit".
Usually the punishment for selling is a lot worse than using.
Something to think about is a bit of WTF, that over a long term average her lab is only bringing in enough business to keep one person high... I always envisioned that kind of work as a job where you'd get shipping pallets stacked with coke every week. My gut level guess is the situation might have actually been pallet level but they only had evidence to bust her at personal use levels at home (skimming from her own resale business).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Tuesday May 10 2016, @01:01AM
Why do they need hundreds of kilos? They only need small samples for testing purposes, and probably don't test every brick in their billion dollar seizure busts.
It's the law enforcement officers, SWAT, FBI, DEA agents who get first dibs on skimming their cut of the drugs. Long live Prohibition.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 23 2016, @10:56PM
I'm guessing the job _was_ pallet level flow, but the cops expected those pallets (less reasonable samples consumed in tests) back, thus restricting her to skimming relatively small quantities. e.g. if you have a pallet full of bags of coke, you are expected to open one bag. They'll expect the remainder of that bag back, and you'd have to be really careful with the rest of the pallet to open and repack more bags without risk of discovery. (In fact, now that I think of it, you may only receive the one bag, unless the cops have some reason to suspect some or all bags are non-"authentic".
There's also the possibility she really only skimmed enough for personal use. It's hard to hide the income from a business worth running, unless you have the self-discipline to take payment in cash (of course), hide that physical cash, and live off your day job until you've got enough to retire on. It's not a dumb decision to skip that whole hassle, and take only enough for yourself. No-one to rat you out, no associates pressuring you to skim more product than you can get away with, no temptation to pull some money out for a car repair/remodeling/what-have-you.