Welcome to RIGGEDLabs UNRIGGED! Podcast | Season 3 Episode 2.

In this episode we will review the case of San Francisco lab analyst Justin Volk.

Season 3 of RIGGEDLabs Podcast—hosted by investigative journalist Jamie Folk and attorney Ilyas Rona, premieres on November 1, 2025, with weekly episodes available on all major podcast and social platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and the podcast's official website RIGGEDLabs.com

The new season dives deep into the 2020 arrest of OCME lab analyst Justin Volk—The San Francisco Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, who was caught in Utah with a sealed evidence bag containing methamphetamine stolen from the very lab he worked in for over a decade. This incident, which potentially tainted thousands of criminal cases—from sexual assaults and DUIs to overdose investigations—exposed a web of lax oversight, ignored protocols, and systemic failures that echoed the fraud and tampering scandals the podcast first uncovered in Massachusetts.

Attorney Rona added,

The third season will feature groundbreaking reporting, including never-before-heard audio from internal OCME audits, analysis of the San Francisco District Attorney's review that flagged over 2,500 compromised cases, and discussions on the office's loss of national accreditation amid backlogs and mishandled evidence. Episodes will also explore broader implications, such as the 2010 SFPD lab scandal involving technician Deborah Madden, who admitted to skimming cocaine, leading to hundreds of dismissed cases.

To sustain this vital work and expand beyond Massachusetts, RIGGEDLabs Podcast is launching simultaneously—with its Season 3—a funding campaign to allow supporters and patrons to help with in-depth probes and to be rewarded with early episode access, bonus content, exclusive Q&A sessions with the hosts, and more.

RIGGED Lab Massachusetts podcast — re-branded RIGGEDLabs UNRIGGED! Podcast to reflect new expanded mission, has garnered critical acclaim for its exhaustive coverage of the Annie Dookhan and Sonja Farak cases, which resulted in over 37,000 vacated convictions and inspired the Netflix series ’How to Fix a Drug Scandal’. With the Season 3, the podcast cements its role as the premier voice exposing forensic labs frauds in America.

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Major revelation in today's episode. Apparently the Massachusetts Inspector General's Office concealed that the Governor's lawyer helped to conceal important information from investigators. We review the evidence obtained by Chris Post and uncover more corruption than we previously suspected.

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.