BOSTON — The Annie Dookhan deception continues to unfold. Dookhan was a government chemist who tampered with thousands of cases, creating fake “evidence” that caused the imprisonment of countless innocent Americans.
These innocent men and women were rounded up and locked in prison cages while prosecutors scored successful “convictions” because of Dookhan’s fake evidence.
Many lost their marriages, lost their children, and lost their careers. Many immigrants were also deported, losing the lives they had built when they traveled to the US.
Dookhan recently pleaded guilty to all counts brought against her.
However, many have been questioning the State’s official story that one rogue chemist was responsible for all the catastrophic injustice.
Indeed we now have reports that a second “chemist” has been fired over doubts concerning her qualifications.
Kate Corbett, who worked in the same lab as Dookhan, claimed that she had a “chemistry degree” from Merrimack College.
That turns out to be a lie, as investigators determined that she took some chemistry classes in college but her degree is actually in sociology, according to a report.
Which is to say, a sociology major may well have worked in a lab that required high-level expertise in chemistry, a lab whose “evidence” determined the fate of thousands of human beings.
Corbett also may have testified as a chemistry “expert” in dozens of court cases leading to the conviction of Americans, which could add to the devastation that Dookhan has already caused.
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Meanwhile several questions remain unanswered.
Did Corbett also tamper with evidence alongside Dookhan? Are we really to believe that Dookhan’s forgeries continued for almost a decade without anybody else participating?
A writer to the Boston Globe asks, “Where were Dookhan’s supervisors and those responsible for checking and approving her work? Why were no red flags raised at the speed with which Dookhan completed tests and submitted reports?”
Corbett has not yet been accused of tampering with evidence.
Jonathan W. Blodgett, president of the Massachusetts District Attorneys Association, found out about the problems with Corbett last week.
He and other defense attorneys are now reviewing the cases she worked on to see whether she, like Dookhan, created any fake evidence.