Crime & Safety

Chemist Annie Dookhan, at Heart of State Drug Lab Scandal, Alleged to Have Lied Under Oath About Her Education

The chemist whom the state blames for tainting evidence in thousands of drug cases appears to have lied on the witness stand about having a master's degree in chemistry.

Officials have added perjury to claims against a "rogue chemist" at the shuttered state drug lab in Jamaica Plain.

It emerged Tuesday that Annie Dookhan, whose actions may have tainted 34,000 drug cases, appears to have lied in court by claiming a master's degree in chemistry.

Dookhan, formerly known as Annie Khan, earned an undergraduate bachelor of science degree in biochemistry from UMass Boston in 2001. But, in contradiction of her testimony in a 2010 drug case, she doesn't have a master's.

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"We have no record of her doing subsequent graduate work at our campus," a UMass official told the Associated Press.

 

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'No one has heard her side'

Meanwhile, as convicted criminals have begun to be freed in cases where Dookhan's evidence was used, the chemist's father is defending her.

"No one has heard her side of the story," Rasheed Khan told CBS News from his Florida home. He says his daughter was bullied and abused.

Dookhan has made no public comments since the scandal erupted into public last month. She resigned from the Jamaica Plain lab in March amid investigations into her conduct.

No criminal charges have been filed against Dookhan, though the Attorney General's office is investigating. Dookhan is said to have tainted drug samples by manipulating their weight and possibly by other methods.

Officials have offered no explanation of why Dookhan would have tainted evidence.

 

No master's degree

The Department of Public Health, for whom Dookhan worked, released a 2003 resume in which she claimed a master's degree, according to the Herald.

There is a profile on the professional networking service LinkedIn for an "Annie Khan," who works as a chemist with the Department of Public Health. The publicly-available profile does not appear to claim she has a master's degree. It lists her education as "UMass Boston, Chemistry & Economics, 2001."

A master's wasn't required for the jobs Dookhan held at the State Labs.

So far, the state has identified 1,141 inmates whose convictions were based on evidence handled by Dookhan, the Globe reported.

 

Follow all the news about the scandal at Jamaica Plain's State Drug Lab at our "Annie Dookhan" topic page.


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