her actions turned the system on its head. a reviiew of every case the chemist laid her hands on from 2003 to 2007 is still under way. consider the numbers, according to a special counsel s report, more than 40,000 cases have been reviewed. involving more than 86,000 drug samples and the analysis of more than 5 million documents. at a cost to taxpayers of at least $7 million and climbing. when you throw a stone into a pond, there is a ripple effect. arguably, the worst ripple effect felt by plymouth county district attorney timothy cruz. because of donta hood. in 2009, a cocaine conviction put him behind bars for five years. but when the lab scandal exploded, hood was set free. because duken had lied on the stand about her credentials, claiming she had a masters degree in chemistry.
today. many of the samples she tampered with came from drug cases brought by police. now thousands of thnose cases could be in jeopardy. appearing grim, crime lab chemist annie duken is going to prison after her behavior helped put hundreds of people behind bars illegally. beyond pleading guilty, she made no personal comments about the havoc created by the scandal. in a lab similar to this one, she admits falsifying drug tests. for example, by adding cocaine to samples, tainting trial evidence. when she was finally caught last year, she tampered logs. the result, look at all these faces. a fraction of the tens of thousands of people dukened, street slang for anyone s evidence she handled. 300 convictions set aside in boston alone.