In doubt: 40,000 convictions, thanks to police chemist’s unbelievable fraud

Article here. Excerpt:

'Annie Dookhan, a chemist for the Massachusetts police, was sentenced to three to five years in prison after committing a fraud so extensive that her crimes call into question the validity of over 40,000 convictions.

Dookhan worked in a laboratory examining evidence in drug cases. She wa a go-to analyst for law enforcement and prosecutors, thanks to her rapid turnaround time and penchant for delivering much-needed drug evidence to score convictions.

Her record, however, was based on countless criminal fabrications. She falsified numerous reports, cut corners, forged signatures, inflated her credentials, lied about whether she was actually testing the lab samples she received and even tampered with evidence, according to NPR.
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After pleading guilty to 27 counts of evidence tampering and falsifying reports, Dookhan was recently sentenced to three to five years in prison. Her lawyer had asked for a lesser sentence, given that Dookhan is the primary caretaker for her seven-year-old son, who is disabled.

The sentence, while not insignificant, seemed too forgiving to some commentators, who noted that Dookhan’s criminal practices helped the government convict and sentence potentially innocent men and women to hundreds of years in prison.'