Dookhan Pleads Not Guilty to All Charges

A diminutive Annie Dookhan walked into Suffolk Superior Court Wednesday morning where she was arraigned on 15 of the 27 charges against her in the state drug lab crisis. 

Dookhan pleaded not guilty to four counts of obstruction of justice, eight counts of tampering with evidence and one count of falsely pretending to hold a degree from a college or university. Charges are pending against Dookhan in other counties as well.

Assitant Attorney General Anne Kaczmarek, who is prosecuting the case, said Dookhan allegedly tampered with drug vials while working at the lab and admitted to forging a lab officer’s initials on a drug sample.

"She would make the drugs match the objective test," she said.

Kaczmarek listed two instances where the true test of a sample came back negative for drugs which Dookhan’s test said were positive for cocaine and marijuana.

Nicholas Gordon, Dookhan’s attorney, asked that Dookhan’s curfew be extended from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., which Suffolk Superior Court Magistrate Gary Wilson granted.

Dookhan is free on $10,000 cash bail. She’s being monitored by a GPS system and cannot leave the state.

She will be back in court Feb. 13 for a pre-trial conference.

Officials have said Dookhan’s malfeasance has convoluted 34,000 criminal drug cases in Massachusetts. Over 200 of those convicted have been set free pending a hearing, and five in Suffolk County have been arrested on new charges.

A state joint audit committee found the Hinton Drug Lab, which has since been shut down, lacked proper accreditation and had a history of poor oversight.

For more information on the state drug lab crisis, check out our topic page.