NJ officials
fear that thousands of criminal convictions throughout the state, including
Bergen County, could be overturned after it was discovered that a lab
technician with the NJ State Police fabricated crucial evidence in a drug case.
Kamalkant Shah
served as a lab tech for the New Jersey State Police and evaluated evidence at
the North Regional Lab Drug Unit located in Little Falls NJ. Shah has been
accused of “dry labbing,” or faking data, on a substance that law enforcement
thought might be marijuana.
New Jersey
police became aware of the deception on December 10, 2015 and started an
investigation into Shah. While the investigation was pending, Shah was removed
from laboratory work. Approximately one month later, on January 12, 2016, Shah
was suspended without pay.
On February
22, Ellie Honig, director of the New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice, sent
a letter to county prosecutors’ offices and pointed to evidence showing that
Shah was observed “recording an anticipated result without properly conducting
the analysis” in a drug crime case.
Moreover,
Honig asked NJ prosecutors to make opposing counsel in open drug cases aware of
the allegations.
On February
29, Judy Fallon, the NJ Deputy Public Defender, sent a separate memo to NJ
Public Defender Joseph Krakora. The memo set forth the allegations against Shah
and directly stated that Shah allegedly faked data in the marijuana possession case. The New
Jersey deputy public defender also said that Shah had been seen “writing ‘test
results’ for suspected marijuana that was never tested.”
On March 2,
2016, the NJ Municipal Court Law Update Service posted the official memo
online.
The latest
news about the allegations against Shah could have serious implications. For
example, the criminal convictions in every case that Shah worked on as a lab
technician could wind up being overturned. Since he started working with the
police in 2005, Shaw served as a lab technician on 7,827 criminal cases.
Although NJ investigators only uncovered a single instance of misconduct by
Shah, all of the criminal cases he worked on could still be jeopardized. Those
drug offense cases were adjudicated in courts across NJ, including Bergen
County, Essex County, Morris County, and Passaic County.
The NJ State
Police is currently talking to Bergen County prosecutors about how to best
handle any open drug cases in Bergen County.
To learn more
about this developing situation, read the NJ.com article, “Lab Tech Allegedly Faked Result
in Drug Case; 7,827 Criminal Cases Now in Question.”
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