BOSTON-A T&T-born chemist ac­cused of de­lib­er­ate­ly fak­ing test re­sults on drug sam­ples in crim­i­nal cas­es was in­dict­ed yes­ter­day on 27 charges, Mass­a­chu­setts At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Martha Coak­ley said. Since the lab was closed, judges have re­leased about 200 de­fen­dants from prison and put their cas­es on hold while their lawyers chal­lenge their con­vic­tions.

An­nie Dookhan, 35, was in­dict­ed by a grand ju­ry on counts of ob­struc­tion of jus­tice, tam­per­ing with ev­i­dence, per­jury and claim­ing to hold a col­lege de­gree. "Her al­leged ac­tions have sent rip­ple ef­fects through­out the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem," state At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Martha Coak­ley said. Dookhan's lawyer, Nico­las Gor­don, did not im­me­di­ate­ly re­turn a call seek­ing com­ment.

Dookhan is sched­uled to be ar­raigned on Thurs­day. Her al­leged mis­con­duct led state po­lice to shut down a state lab used by po­lice de­part­ments to test drugs in crim­i­nal cas­es.

Many more cas­es could be af­fect­ed be­cause au­thor­i­ties have said Dookhan test­ed more than 60,000 sam­ples in­volv­ing 34,000 de­fen­dants dur­ing her nine years at the lab.

Dookhan was first ar­rest­ed in Sep­tem­ber on two counts of ob­struc­tion of jus­tice and one count of pre­tend­ing to hold a de­gree. She plead­ed not guilty to the orig­i­nal charges and has been free on $10,000 bail. She has not pub­licly com­ment­ed on the ac­cu­sa­tions. Dur­ing her ar­raign­ment on the orig­i­nal charges, as­sis­tant At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Vern­er said state po­lice learned of Dookhan's ac­tions af­ter a chemist at the lab said he had ob­served "many ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties" in Dookhan's work.

Vern­er said Dookhan lat­er ac­knowl­edged to state po­lice that she some­times would test on­ly five out of 15 to 20 sam­ples but would list them all as pos­i­tive for the pres­ence of a drug. She al­so al­leged­ly ac­knowl­edged that some­times, if a sam­ple test­ed neg­a­tive, she would take known co­caine from an­oth­er sam­ple and add it to the neg­a­tive sam­ple to make it test pos­i­tive. (AP)

The on­ly mo­tive au­thor­i­ties have de­scribed is that Dookhan want­ed to be seen as a good work­er.

When she was in­ter­viewed by state po­lice in Au­gust, Dookhan said she just want­ed to get the work done and nev­er meant to hurt any­one. "I screwed up big-time," she is quot­ed as say­ing in a sum­ma­ry of the in­ter­view. "I messed up bad; it's my fault. I don't want the lab to get in trou­ble." (AP)