Attorney George T. Daggett filed a notice of tort claim on Friday naming the lab tech and the State Police
Nearly 8,000 criminal cases are under review after a State Police lab tech was allegedly caught making up results in one drug case, authorities said.SPARTA -- A Sussex County-based attorney plans to sue the State Police on behalf of a dozen clients whose cases were handled by the State Police laboratory where a technician was caught faking results in a drug case, New Jersey Herald reported.
George T. Daggett filed a notice of tort claim on Friday naming the now-retired technician, Kamalkant Shah, as well as the State Police, the superintendent of the State Police, Col. Rick Fuentes, and the State Police Office of Forensic Sciences North Region-Drug Unit, the newspaper reported. Daggett's clients were identified only by their initials in the notice of tort claim.
As reported by NJ Advance Media, Kamalkant Shah worked as a laboratory technician for the State Police laboratory in Little Falls and was found on Dec. 10 to have "dry labbed" suspected marijuana -- which, as a result, has cast a shadow over 7,827 criminal cases on which he worked.
"Basically, he was observed writing 'test results' for suspected marijuana that was never tested," Deputy Public Defender Judy Fallon said in a memo to Public Defender Joseph Krakora on Feb. 29.
Ellie Honig, director of the Division of Criminal Justice, said in Feb. 22 letter to county prosecutor's offices that Shah "failed to appropriately conduct laboratory analyses in a drug case." The letter advised prosecutors to disclose this information to defense counsel.
"Mr. Shah was observed in one case spending insufficient time analyzing a substance to determine if it was marijuana and recording an anticipated result without properly conducting the analysis," Honig said.
Authorities have said about 2,100 cases in Passaic County, 2,000 in Essex County and 263 in Sussex were impacted by the disclosure over Shah's results. Numerous cases in Morris and Bergen counties were also affected but the prosecutor's offices and assignment judges in those jurisdictions have not disclosed the specific figures.
Ernest M. Caposela, the assignment judge of Passaic County, previously told NJ Advance Media people who are currently in prison based on tests performed by Shah may need to be let out until investigators can determine if those test results were legitimate.
"The cases I'm most concerned about are individuals who are serving a sentence after a conviction after a trial (in which Shah's results were utilized)," Caposela said.
"If somebody was convicted based on one of these tests, until we know more, I think you've got to let them out," he said. "At least until we can determine whether these certifications have any integrity."
Caposela also said a large number of drug cases -- many of which were adjudicated by municipal courts -- likely wouldn't be overturned if defendants accepted a plea early on in the process.
"One of the gaps is I don't really know the nature of the breach in the lab," he said. "The AG (attorney general) is really going to have to enlighten us on that."
Cases where defendants were convicted and didn't plead guilty are what concern Caposela the most -- especially if they've been convicted or are in county jail awaiting trial. The next highest priority are those defendants who are out on bail pending trial and those who were convicted and already served their sentences.
Defendants who were convicted and already served their sentence may also seek to file for post-conviction relief or appeal their sentences -- as it could challenge their status as a convicted felon or impact post-incarceration stipulations of their sentence.
According to Fallon's memo, the prosecutor's office's plan "is to submit for retesting specimens from open cases. The larger, and unanswered, question is how this impacts already resolved cases, especially those where the specimens may have been destroyed."
Justin Zaremba may be reached at jzaremba@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JustinZarembaNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.