Sharon Salem was testifying at a Hampden Superior Court evidentiary hearing set by Judge C. Jeffrey Kinder to hear evidence of the scope and timing of Sonja Farak’s alleged criminal conduct.
SPRINGFIELD - Sharon Salem, the evidence officer for the now closed drug testing laboratory in Amherst, testified Monday on Jan. 17 she discovered two drug samples missing from the vault where they belonged.
She told her supervisor the next day and they went to chemist Sonja Farak’s work station, where they first found a bucket containing substances that could be used to decrease the purity of cocaine.
Salem said her reaction was “Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God. (That) shouldn’t be here.”
Salem was testifying at a Hampden Superior Court hearing set by Judge C. Jeffrey Kinder to hear evidence of the scope and timing of Farak’s alleged criminal conduct.
In the courtroom were 15 convicted men and women, six of them in handcuffs, who are seeking new trials based on Farak’s alleged acts and how they affected their cases.
Kinder said he also wants to know more about the negative findings in an October 2012 State Police Quality Assurance Audit of the lab.
He wants to know how Farak’s alleged criminal conduct and the audit findings might relate to the testing performed in the 15 cases.
Farak, 35, of Northampton, faces trial early next year in Hampshire Superior Court.
She is charged with four counts of evidence tampering, four counts of larceny of drugs and two count of possession of cocaine.
She was one of two chemists at the laboratory housed at the University of Massachusetts that stores and analyzes substances seized by police as possible drug evidence.
The lab was under the auspices of the state Department of Public Health until July 2012, when it was put under the control of the state police.
Because of the number of cases, Kinder had named defense lawyer Jared Olanoff, who was assisted by lawyer Luke Ryan, to assemble evidence and call witnesses.
In the courtroom also were lawyers for the other men, lawyers sitting in to hear the testimony, and family members of the 15 men and women.
The defense lawyers are seeking to show Farak mishandled drugs dating back far beyond January.
They are also seeking to show lab protocols used before state police took control gave multiple opportunities for tampering by Farak.
Assistant District Attorney Frank Flannery is handling the matter for Hampden District Attorney Mark G. Mastroianni’s office.
The hearing is separate from the Hampshire Superior Court prosecution of Farak, which is led by state Assistant Attorney General Anne Kaczmarek.
The defense lawyers sought to call Nikki Michele Lee, Farak’s wife, to the stand at the hearing Monday but her lawyer Marissa Elkins successfully blocked that.
Elkins said Lee was asserting marital privilege as well as privilege against self incrimination.
Matt Harper-Nixon, lawyer for Kathleen Carter, said spousal privilege should not apply in this hearing, since it is not a trial of Farak. He said Lee testified in the grand jury proceeding that resulted in Farak’s indictment.
Ryan said the defense lawyers wanted to question Lee on her observations of drug use by Farak, particularly as to when it occurred.
State Police Sgt. Joseph Ballou testified about the investigation into Farak, saying it is still incomplete.
The hearing will continue Oct. 7, in part because of Flannery’s request that he be able to get all newly discovered cases in which Farak’s actions are suspect, such as a Berkshire County case he was told about Friday.
He said his office wants to give “full disclosure” of the relevant information for the hearing.
Flannery said he learned late Friday about a Berkshire County case that could present important information.
He said in a July 2012 case Farak tested a cocaine sample and said it had a high percentage of cocaine.
When it was retested it has just a trace of cocaine, he said.
Salem said Farak’s work output began to slow in July or August of 2012, but said she didn’t know if it was because of increased paperwork after the State Police was in control of the lab.
Farak, who is free on bail awaiting trial, will not be called to the evidentiary hearing.
Ballou testified among items found in Farak’s car were papers with the initials R.P. written on them. He said he felt Farak was practicing writing the initials of the other chemist at the lab, Rebecca Pontes.
Catherine Morrison, who works in quality assurance for the state police forensic services group, said she found a number of procedures at the Amherst lab which needed immediate attention to bring it to accreditation after the state police acquired the lab.
One was that the chain of custody of drugs was not documented fully. Also, some analysts dated and initialed the samples they tested, but some didn’t.
She said when the Amherst lab was closed after Farak’s arrest, the other staff came to the Sudbury facility.
Ballou said a sandwich bag (not an evidence bag) of crack cocaine was found in Farak’s work station.
For the two samples Salem had reported missing, the sliced open evidence bags were found tampered with at Farak’s workstation, Ballou said.
In a tote bag stuffed in a hollowed out spot in her lab cupboard was found more sliced open, empty evidence bags, he said.