Massachusetts Drug Lab Scandal RIGGEDLabs UNRIGGED! Podcast | S3 E2 -Justin Volk Case Overview - RIGGEDLabs UNRIGGED! Podcast

Episode 2

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Published on:

19th Oct 2025

RIGGEDLabs UNRIGGED! Podcast | S3 E2 -Justin Volk Case Overview

Welcome to RIGGEDLabs UNRIGGED! Podcast | Season 3 Episode 2.

In this episode we will review the case of San Francisco lab analyst Justin Volk.

Season 3 of RIGGEDLabs Podcast—hosted by investigative journalist Jamie Folk and attorney Ilyas Rona, premieres 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. James 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, RIGGEDLabs Podcast 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.

RIGGED Lab Massachusetts podcast — re-branded RIGGEDLabs UNRIGGED! Podcast 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.

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About the Podcast

RIGGEDLabs UNRIGGED! 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.

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.