The Unindicted
Compare and Contrast
Here are two seemingly unrelated stories. In reality, they fit together and the solution for one is an appropriate solution for the other. Not one but two Massachusetts state chemists were caught falsifying lab results and stealing drugs. The story below is about the second chemist.
Been there done that, got the t-shirt. I sent a fellow narc, a guy I considered a friend, to Federal prison for 12 years. I could prove that he stole a quantity of cocaine from our evidence locker. The evidence tag still affixed to his stash was helpful. I don’t know when he twisted off. I don’t know if his prior testimony was truthful or perjured. The District Attorney and the United States Attorney erred on the side of caution and dismissed cases where his testimony was key.
Massachusetts let 300 defendants go because of the actions of this chemist. Did she falsify all three hundred reports? The state could only prove four cases of evidence tampering. The charges against the three hundred were dropped, not because the chemist lied and stole, in each case. The charges were dropped because prosecutors, judges and administrators lost confidence in the system. The credibility of the evidence, handled by that chemist, was hopelessly compromised.
Massachusetts crime lab scandal explodes
BY REBECCA TRAGER4 APRIL 2013
A second Massachusetts state chemist has been charged with evidence tampering after more than 300 convicted inmates have been released
More than 300 convicted inmates have been released from Massachusetts state prisons in the US as a result of the September 2012 arrest and subsequent prosecution of Annie Dookhan, who worked in a Department of Public Health state laboratory and allegedly falsified evidence used in criminal cases. Now the scandal has grown with the prosecution of another Massachusetts state lab chemist for tampering with evidence and stealing drugs seized as evidence.
Sonja Farak, who worked at the Massachusetts State Crime Laboratory in Amherst, was charged with tampering with four drug samples stored at the lab on 1 April. In two of the cases, authorities allege that Farak mixed drug evidence samples with counterfeit drugs to hide her theft, and in the two other cases the samples could not be found. She was also charged with cocaine possession.
So what? That was dope and this is political corruption. Whose corruption? The Special Prosecutor made his bones in Massachusetts. As the United States Attorney, he ignored evidence that would have set free four men wrongfully convicted of murder. It was either them of the FBI’s very most favorite snitch Whitey Bulger.
Comey and Strzok were both fired from the FBI, their credibility in tatters. DAG Rosenstein, Comey and Strzok all signed off on the FISA warrant (under penalty of perjury) that the statements were true and correct. OOPS.
Starting to see a parallel here? Like the Massachusetts Lab scandal the evidence or legal process to obtain it is hopelessly tainted. There is no telling what is true and what is a lie. Did this group of clowns lie all of the time, some of the time or just once and a while?
Whoa: Mueller Tells Judge in Mike Flynn Case to Go F*** Himself, Refusing to Deliver The Original Notes of the Flynn Interview As He Was Ordered To Do
—Ace of Spades
And of course Mueller immediately wiped Strzok’s and Page’s phones.
Mueller was ordered to turn over all notes of the Flynn interview and the orginal 302 filed by Strzok and Pientka. That is an interesting 302, because, of course, it has been reported that the interviewing witnesses said that Flynn did not offer any deception.
But then seven months later, when Mueller’s looking prosecute Trump, a new 302 gets written that says Flynn did lie?
And Mueller continues defying a judge, refusing to turn over the original, despite being specifically ordered to produce it?
I don’t think this calls for a sentence of no time to be served; I think this calls for a striking of Flynn’s plea deal and a statement that Flynn has no longer pled guilty and is now officially just innocent.
I was a cop for thirty years. I have conducted thousands of interviews and interrogations. Most occurred on street corners, some in homes and others in “the box” complete with the defendant’s attorney and an AUSA participating. Not all lies are created equal. Lies are good, a means to an end. Not all lies are criminal.
It is not criminal for an investigating officer to lie to a suspect. It is neither here nor there when the suspect claims innocence against overwhelming evidence of his guilt. I want suspects to lie to me. I would take those lies and beat the suspect over the head with them. I can’t do anything with stony silence.
Sometimes a lie is as good as an admission. I pulled an ounce of crack out of the pocket of a crack dealer and confronted him with my find.
His reply, “those aren’t my pants!” We’re done.
My favorite is the confrontation with the peeping tom caught masturbating while peeking in a window. He offered a variety of explanations each more outrageous than the other. Just when I thought he had reached the epitome of lying, he proved me wrong. I asked him, “Why is your dick hanging out?”
He looked down at his rapidly deflating penis and proclaimed, “It’s not my dick!” My work is done.
I don’t have any patience with those who claim that the FBI shouldn’t have given Flynn the opportunity to lie. Bullshit! At the same time, characterizing a glass as “half full” instead of “half empty” is not a falsehood.
It is bright line law that when law enforcement commits perjury in order to try a defendant, they violate his rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. It is also bright line law that evidence the government obtains illegally, taints subsequent evidence. Even if it was legally obtained.
Was Flynn lying when he participated in the interview with the FBI? Did Strozk lie when when he wrote his report of the interview an opinion that Flynn had not lied? Or was Strozk lying when he wrote a subsequent report of the interview, months later when he concluded that Flynn had lied.
Nobody, in this whole mess, has covered themselves with glory.