BOSTON — A former drug lab chemist convicted of faking test results and tampering with evidence, leading to a review of tens of thousands of criminal cases, is out of prison.
Annie Doohkan has been paroled, a spokesman for the Massachusetts prisons system confirmed to the Boston Herald. Nicolas Gordon, the attorney who represented Dookhan during her criminal case, said she was released about a month ago.
Dookhan tampered with evidence while working as a testing chemist at a Boston lab operated by the Department of Public Health.
She was sentenced to three to five years in prison in November 2013.
Gordon says Dookhan’s focus has been on her family and she hasn’t made any major decisions about her future.
But while Dookhan is now free, thousands of people are still in prison awaiting a chance to challenge convictions made on possibly tainted evidence, the Massachusetts chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union said Tuesday in response to the news.
The civil rights group has sued to have local district attorneys turn over lists of possibly impacted cases by May 9. Prosecutors have previously estimated that there could be 20,000 such cases.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.