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Episode 8

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Published on:

3rd Feb 2022

Audio of Springfield Detective Greg Bigda Threatening to Murder Teenagers

To say that this episode is disturbing is a major understatement. Jamie, Ilyas and Chris review the video of Springfield Detective Greg Bigda who was indicted in 2018 by a federal grand jury for excessive force in connection with allegedly punching and kicking young car theft suspects during an arrest in 2016, two counts of “abusive interrogation” for threatening to kill and plant drugs on them, plus drafting a false police report. He faced up to 15 years behind bars if convicted.

Bigda was unbelievably acquitted of these charges by a jury that truly needs to have it's collective heads examined. The jury heard the same audio that is featured in this podcast. They heard an unhinged man screaming at teenagers and threatening to murder them and "get away with it" and that he was going to plant drugs on one of the kids and lock him away for 15 years.

This is truly an unbelievable episode that will leave you shocked and outraged. Enjoy!

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About the Podcast

Rigged: The Massachusetts Drug Lab Scandal Podcast

Hosts Jamie Folk and Ilyas Rona take a deep dive into the case responsible for the greatest violation of constitutional rights in Massachusetts history

On September 28, 2012, Massachusetts state chemist Annie Dookhan was arrested and charged with obstruction of justice and falsification of academic records. Approximately four months later another chemist, Sonja Farak, was arrested for using the drugs she was supposed to be testing and the Massachusetts Drug Lab Scandal was born.

Hosts Jamie Folk and Ilyas Rona will be exploring the William H Hinton, UMass Amherst and State Police crime labs associated with this scandal and speak with the lawyers whose clients rights were violated as a result of the fraud committed by the chemists in these labs. Through their investigation of this case, Folk and Rona have found that the crimes of Dookhan and Farak were just the tip of the iceberg and that multiple chemists from three state labs lied on the stand, knowingly sent people to jail for possessing drugs that were not illegal and wanted to help law enforcement send as many people to jail as possible.

Jamie Folk is an independent journal who has been investigating this case since Dookhan's arrest was first reported. He has obtained over 70k documents from the state and has interviewed several lawyers, journalists, politicians, law enforcement officials and others connected with the case over the past 7 years.

Ilyas Rona is a lawyer who represented a man sent to prison by Dookhan and another Hinton lab chemist for possessing what turned out to be a cashew for two years. He has been investigating the Hinton, Amherst and State Police labs ever since.

About your host

James Folk

Jamie Folk has been researching and reporting on the Massachusetts Drug Lab Scandal since 2013. He has worked in the biotech industry around Boston for the past 17 years in the Quality Assurance space. He was a volunteer with the Massachusetts Department of Corrections from 2010 to 2015 running the Alternatives to Violence (AVP) workshops for inmates and met many victims of these labs in prison.