A little over a year ago, Robert Ward of Wareham pleaded guilty to selling heroin and cocaine, and was sentenced to three to five years in prison. With drug convictions that stretch back to the 1980s in Dorchester, Ward even admitted his guilt at the scene.

Today he is a free man – thanks to the mishandling of evidence by rogue state chemist Annie Dookhan.

For nine years, Dookhan worked at a Department of Health drug lab, where she tested drugs related to approximately 34,000 cases across the state. Only after she resigned last spring did it come to light that she improperly performed many of the tests and, prosecutors say, in some cases put cocaine in samples where there was none before they got to the lab.

The result: Dookhan faces two felony counts of obstruction of justice and a misdemeanor charge for lying about her educational background. More than 1,000 people charged or convicted of drug offenses have had their right to due process compromised due to her actions, and many may see the outside of a prison long before their sentences are up.

“The Annie Dookhan scandal has affected us. Defendants that we have put in jail for drug dealing, I'm talking major dealers, have been released from jail, had their sentences stayed, or [are] getting a new trial,” said Wareham Police Detective Douglas Jacinto. “All our hard work, down the tubes."

Jacinto and prosecutors do not know how many other alleged Wareham drug dealers Dookhan will put back on the streets, but they know Ward will not be the only local fallout.

"It’s too soon to tell, and we will deal with it if it becomes an issue," said Police Chief Richard Stanley. "We will continue our efforts to put drug dealers behind bars where they belong."

Police say Dookhan managed to convince her colleagues and bosses that she was qualified for a job she wasn’t, and that even the Master’s degree in chemistry she claimed she had turned out to be a fabrication.

Dookhan is also being investigated for inappropriate communication with prosecutors, who are not supposed to communicate directly with chemists.

Plymouth County Assistant District Attorney Bridget Norton Middleton says that it could be awhile before the scope of the tainted cases is known.

“We’re still trying to figure out which defendants were affected," said Middleton.

Ward's case was stayed in Plymouth Superior Court due to Dookhan's handling of evidence.

Ward has multiple prior convictions for drug-related offenses occurring from 1988 to 2010. The latest arrest in September of 2010 was for a subsequent offense of possession of heroin and cocaine with intent to distribute. Ward has three convictions in Wareham from 2004, one from New Bedford in 2003, and one from Dorchester in 1988.

According to Middleton, Ward filed a motion for a stay of execution on his sentence, despite the objections of the Plymouth District Attorney's office.

The DA's office objected to Ward's release because he admitted to officers at the scene that the drugs found at what officers called a "distribution house" belonged to him. Also, Ward pleaded guilty to the charges.

According to the police report, when officers began their search, Ward, who police described as a "mid-level cocaine distributor in greater Southeastern Massachusetts," urged them not to tear the house apart and insisted, “all that [expletive] is mine.”

One of the detectives on-scene asked if Ward was referring to “the crack-cocaine in the kitchen,” according to the police report, and Ward responded: “Yes, and the dope on the counter.”

Potentially increasing the fallout, the American Civil Liberties Union is requesting that Attorney General Martha Coakley throw out any cases involving police officers or prosecutors who communicated directly with Dookhan.

The circumstances are particularly frustrating for the detectives who worked diligently to catch drug dealers.

Of Ward, Detective Jacinto said: "He is back living in Wareham, soon to be drug-dealing again."