Rigged: The Massachusetts Drug Lab Scandal Podcast

After a year and a half, finally Chris Post and his fellow attorneys have uncovered more details on the cover up by the Massachusetts Inspector General's office. Apparently there were emails prior to the report being published saying "What do you say about what we found on other chemist misconduct outside of Dookhan?". The Inspector General KNEW more chemists than Dookhan were committing crimes and even referred as many as six lab employees for criminal referrals!

This has been no where in the media and has been known by the state since they investigated the lab back in 2013. Shocking yet not surprising.

Ilyas and Jamie take a break from the drug lab to do a deep dive into what drives the state to fight their war on drug addicted people. Civil Assist Forfeiture is just a new rendition of the ancient practice of state run overlords using force backed by unfair laws to harass and steal from poor people.

Ilyas traces the practice back to the Magna Carta but it certainly predates that. Today police use the principal to take money from the people who the arrest for drug use and distribution to take all of their cash, cars and property. This cash is then used to buy things that don't need to be approved by legislative bodies or reported at all. Boston was caught using this money to buy face recognition technology and placing cameras around the city to spy on its citizens.

The Massachusetts Inspector General made criminal referrals for multiple Hinton Lab Chemists, Supervisors and the Lab Director. They did this while never publicly admitting it. They also knowingly lied to the public when they said in their 2014 report on the Hinton Lab that Annie Dookhan was the lone bad actor at the Hinton Lab..

Jamie, Ilays and Chris examine these newly unearthed criminal referrals from as far back as 2013 and going all the way up to 2015. We also look at evidence uncovered by Jamie that indicates that the Massachusetts State Police Lab also engaged in behavior that the Inspector General thought was egregious enough to refer Hinton Chemists for Criminal Referrals.

No referrals have been made for any chemist outside of Sonja Farak who did not work in the Hinton Lab in spite of the State Police and Amherst chemists engaging in the same behavior that got Hinton chemists into trouble with the OIG. This is a developing story and we divulge information in this episode that no news organization has yet to uncover.

So the Massachusetts Inspector General's Office told all the DAs in the state that they were recommending criminal charges against multiple chemists in the Hinton Lab not just Annie Dookhan. They made these recommendations way back in 2014 and 2015 and the DAs did nothing.

The Inspector General then knowingly lied to the public and when they told them that Dookhan was the lone back actor at the Hinton Drug Lab in the conclusion of their report. The blatant lying displayed here by the state is truly astounding and there has been zero accountability.

We have been saying it for years but now, thanks to the release of new documents from the OIG, we know that the OIG wanted to charge multiple employees of the drug lab not named Annie Dookhan with criminal misconduct. We discuss these new developments and where the case, and the podcast, are going. Amazing that there is still new news on this case that is over ten years old.

As a police officer, how do you prove to a pastor who calls you a tyrant that you are, indeed, not a tyrant? If your name is Worcester Police Officer Michael Cappabianca Jr. it's simple. You taser the living shit out the priest inside his church and then throw a pregnant woman to the ground. You then arrest the pastor and his son and make up several charges that didn't happen. How could anyone ever consider this man to be a tyrant?!

Today's episode has independent journalist Bill Shaner, Andrew Quemere and Chris Post talking all things Worcester PD and how the city enables its police to be truly terrible.

Jamie, Chris and Ilyas discuss the inditement of former Massachusetts Police Union head Dana Pullman and the tragic tale of former Springfield PD Evidence Officer Kevin Burnham. These two cases show just how corrupt the justice system in Massachusetts truly is and how absolute power corrupts absolutely.

In another example of the system walking slowly toward doing the right thing in the drug lab case, a judge in Middlesex County is looking into if Annie Dookhan was, in fact, the lone bad actor.

Everyone who is reading this knows that and has known it since this Podcast came out back in 2020 but it is good that the wheels of justice are finally turning. Cheris returns to discuss what this could mean and where the case could go from here.

Closing out our review of the Madness within the Framingham PD, Ilyas and Jamie discuss the many alleged crimes committed by members of the department only this time it isn't the people that they arrest making the accusations but the officers of the department itself. Many officers sued each other and accusing each other of lying under oath and other crimes, all somehow, under the nose of the local media who never reported any of these shenanigans.

This one needs to be heard to be believed.

Luke is back to discuss the recent news that he has reached an agreement with the state of Massachusetts for 14 million dollars to cover costs associated with the wrongful conviction of 31 thousand drug lab victims. We discuss the settlement and how it came about and the potential of future settlements with the state.