The Norfolk County prosecutor who carried on an unusual and sometimes personal e-mail correspondence with controversial state chemist Annie Dookhan abruptly resigned Wednesday, saying he did not want to be “a further distraction” from the investigation into criminal misconduct in the state drug lab in Jamaica Plain.
The Globe reported Wednesday that George Papachristos, an assistant district attorney who prosecuted numerous drug cases in which Dookhan provided the drug analysis, exchanged dozens of e-mails with Dookhan, some veering into personal subjects. At one point during the correspondence that spanned at least two years, Dookhan’s husband tried to contact Papachristos directly, apparently out of concern that the two were having an affair.
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But the question remains is, as with Annie Dookhan, how far up the managment chain did it go.
Morrissey should be ashamed of himself. Papachristos was no more a distraction, even less so, than Scott Allen. If Papachristos did something wrong that amounts to a criminal act he should not be allowed to resign but should be fired and prosecuted; anything less than that he should have been supported. It looks like Papachristos was dumped because Morrissey could not take the heat. What does that tell you about the man?
And the legal and social web -- apparently created by one person, Annie Dookhan -- grows and grows affecting so many lives.