Drug lab scandal: Man released after cocaine retested

After a retest of two kilograms of cocaine led to a man's 20-year prison sentence being overturned and his release, the Delaware Public Defender's Office is again asking judges to revisit dozens of drug convictions in which evidence was handled by the scandal-plagued drug lab.

The test showed this week that two tightly wrapped, shoe box-size bricks were not cocaine, but were instead powdered sugar or some other baking staple.

Jermaine Dollard, who has a long history of arrests and escalating criminal behavior dating to the late 1990s, was sentenced in 2013 to prison after those bricks were found in a secret compartment in his car. He was released from prison and the case against him was dropped.

Defense attorneys say the reversal, thewith at the OCME between 2010 and 2014, leading Delaware State Police to close the controlled substances lab in February and the Delaware Legislature to eliminate the OCME.

Its duties were assigned to the newly-created Division of Forensic Science underneath the Delaware Department of Safety and Homeland Security.

Two former OCME employees – forensic investigator James Woodson and chemist Farnam Daneshgar – were arrested and charged in connection with the scandal.

Dollard's Dover-based attorney Alexander Funk said Dollard's case, which was handled by Woodson and three other employees, raises "suspicions" about other cases.

"The greater concern and greater scandal here is the potential for drylabbing," he said.

The Delaware Department of Justice declined to comment on how it plans to respond to the public defender's request, except to say the matter has been