Annie Dookhan, who was a state chemist for Massachusetts, pleaded guilty Friday and will serve three to five years in prison. As many as 350 people have already been released from jail as a result of her wrongdoing.
Former state chemist Annie Dookhan sits Friday, Nov. 22, 2013, in Suffolk Superior Court in Boston, before a hearing where she entered a guilty plea on charges of obstruction of justice, perjury, and tampering with evidence. Ms. Dookhan, who admitted faking test results in criminal cases, was sentenced to three to five years in prison, followed by two years’ probation.
A former state chemist for Massachusetts pleaded guilty Friday to breezing fraudulently through tens of thousands of tests used to prosecute drug-related crimes and then covering up her shortcuts. Annie Dookhan will serve three to five years in prison, and the Massachusetts criminal justice system must now reevaluate thousands of prosecutions that relied on her tests.
After initially denying the charges, Ms. Dookhan, who was born in Trinidad, raised in Boston, and is now a single mother in her 30s, changed her plea Friday. She pleaded guilty to 27 charges of obstruction of justice, perjury, and tampering with evidence.
Dookhan’s actions may have distorted the results of the criminal trials of more than 40,000 individuals, and close to 350 people have already been released from prison as a result, Boston public radio station WBUR reports. The Boston-area Department of Public Health laboratory where she had worked for 10 years was closed in August 2012 after the scandal surfaced, and the Associated Press reports that 1,100 criminal cases have been dismissed or not prosecuted as a result.
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