Massachusetts Drug Lab Scandal RIGGEDLabs Podcast | Season 3 Press Release - Introduce and Read by Jamie Folk - RIGGEDLabs Podcast

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17th Oct 2025

RIGGEDLabs Podcast | Season 3 Press Release - Introduce and Read by Jamie Folk

In this first episode of RIGGEDLabs Podcast Season 3, Jamie Folk introduces a new season and reads the new press release.

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RIGGEDLabs SEASON 3 PRESS RELEASE

Contact Information:

RIGGED: RIGGED Lab Massachusetts Podcast

Mr. Jamie Folk

+1-774-291-9493 | Phone

ThePodcast@RIGGEDLabs.com | email

Release Date: October 10, 2025


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Returning For Season 3 To Uncovering Nationwide Drug Labs Scandals Across the United States of America.

Boston, MAOctober 10, 2025 – The award-winning investigative podcast—RIGGED Lab Massachusetts podcast announces today the launch of its highly anticipated third season, shifting its unflinching lens nationwide to expose the shocking malfeasance in drug labs across the nation. In a bold expansion of its mission to hold forensic systems accountable. The podcast is also launching a new unified platform and campaign to fund in-depth probes into drug lab scandals across the United States.

Season 3 of RIGGED: ThePodcast—hosted by investigative journalist Jamie Folk and attorney Ilyas Rona, will premiere on November 1, 2025, with weekly episodes available on all major podcast and social platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and the podcast's official website RIGGEDLabs.com The new season dives deep into the 2020 arrest of OCME lab analyst Justin Volk—The San Francisco Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, who was caught in Utah with a sealed evidence bag containing methamphetamine stolen from the very lab he worked in for over a decade. This incident, which potentially tainted thousands of criminal cases—from sexual assaults and DUIs to overdose investigations—exposed a web of lax oversight, ignored protocols, and systemic failures that echoed the fraud and tampering scandals the podcast first uncovered in Massachusetts.


"Five years after Justin Volk's arrest rocked San Francisco's justice system, the full story remains buried under bureaucratic cover-ups and unaddressed reforms," said Mr. Folk. "Just like Annie Dookhan and Sonja Farak rigged evidence in Massachusetts drug labs, sending innocent people to prison and eroding public trust, the OCME scandal reveals how forensic labs nationwide prioritize speed over integrity. We're bringing exclusive interviews with whistleblowers, affected families, and legal experts to light the path to accountability."


Attorney Rona added,

"This isn't just about one bad actor — it's about a broken machine. Volk handled up to 25,000 cases, including toxicology tests for 1,200 sexual assaults. Our investigation will reveal how management lowered hiring standards, allowed drug evidence to pile up unchecked, and ignored red flags, much like the Hinton and Amherst labs we exposed in earlier seasons. The parallels are chilling, and the consequences for justice are devastating."


The third season will feature groundbreaking reporting, including never-before-heard audio from internal OCME audits, analysis of the San Francisco District Attorney's review that flagged over 2,500 compromised cases, and discussions on the office's loss of national accreditation amid backlogs and mishandled evidence. Episodes will also explore broader implications, such as the 2010 SFPD lab scandal involving technician Deborah Madden, who admitted to skimming cocaine, leading to hundreds of dismissed cases.


To sustain this vital work and expand beyond Massachusetts, RIGGED: ThePodcast is launching simultaneously—with its Season 3—a funding campaign to allow supporters and patrons to help with in-depth probes and to be rewarded with early episode access, bonus content, exclusive Q&A sessions with the hosts, and more.


"True justice requires relentless pursuit of the truth, but independent journalism like ours can't thrive without community backing," said Folk. "Patrons aren't just founders—they're partners in dismantling these rigged systems and preventing the next generation of wrongful convictions."


RIGGED Lab Massachusetts podcast — re-branded RIGGED: ThePodcast to reflect new expanded mission, has garnered critical acclaim for its exhaustive coverage of the Annie Dookhan and Sonja Farak cases, which resulted in over 37,000 vacated convictions and inspired the Netflix series ’How to Fix a Drug Scandal’. With the Season 3, the podcast cements its role as the premier voice exposing forensic labs frauds in America.


For media inquiries, episode previews, or more details,

contact:

Jamie Folk, Investigative Journalist & Host

RIGGEDLabs UNRIGGED! Podcast

via email: ThePodcast@RIGGEDLabs.com

by phone: +I-774-29I-9493

Major Social Platforms: @RIGGEDLabs

on TikTok | X | Instagram | WhatsApp | Facebook

About RIGGEDLabs Podcast

Launched in 2020, RIGGEDLabs Podcast uncovers the fraud, cover-ups, and human cost of tainted forensic evidence in drug labs nationwide across the United of America. Through meticulous research and survivor stories, hosts Jamie Folk and Ilyas Rona advocate for reform, ensuring no one is imprisoned on rigged science.

Listen to RIGGEDLabs on Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Amazon Music + Audible | YouTube

Follow @RIGGEDLabs on social media.

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About the Podcast

RIGGEDLabs 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.

Season 3 begins the exploration of cases outside of Massachusetts in the hope of shining a light on other drug lab scandals throughout the country.
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About your host

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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.