The Colorado Bureau of Investigation plans to hire a fledgling Wisconsin consulting firm to audit its forensic services as the agency attempts to move forward after discovering its star DNA scientist manipulated testing data for years.
CBI officials intend to award a $770,000 contract to Forward Resolutions LLC, which was founded in January by two top administrators at the Wisconsin State Crime Laboratories, according to a Sept. 24 letter reviewed by The Denver Post and business records kept by the Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions.
The company will audit CBI’s forensic services division, examining its policies, procedures, testing, quality control and its “ability to maintain the trust and respect of the communities it serves,” according to the bureau’s request for proposals.
CBI put out the call for an audit and assessment in August, months after an internal investigation showed that now-former CBI forensic scientist Yvonne “Missy” Woods routinely deleted and manipulated data in DNA testing during her nearly 30-year career.
The agency has so far identified problems in 809 of Woods’ cases between 1994 and 2023, and state lawmakers set aside $7.5 million to remedy the wrongdoing.
Colorado’s criminal justice system is bracing for a slew of people challenging their criminal convictions based on Woods’ flawed work. In August, one man said he was wrongfully convicted of murder based on Woods’ faulty DNA testing, and prosecutors in Boulder said in June that a triple murderer received a plea deal with a lighter sentence in part because of her misconduct.
Jennifer Naugle and Nicole Roehm, the founders of Forward Resolutions, called Woods’ actions a “significant breach of public trust” in their project proposal. They plan to conduct interviews, review documents, survey employees and produce a final report in 85 business days that considers the “root cause” of Woods’ misconduct and how the agency can prevent future employee misconduct.
CBI also wants Forward Resolutions to examine its performance review process and “any early warning systems that help to identify employees at risk of engaging in potential misconduct so intervention may occur and (CBI can) maintain the integrity of operations.”
The agency in June committed to such a review after its internal affairs investigation into Woods showed that several of her colleagues raised concerns about her work for nearly a decade before CBI removed Woods from the job.
Forward Resolutions was one of five organizations to submit proposals for the audit, with quoted prices for the work ranging between $417,000 to $9.5 million. Two law firms, two consulting firms and a university offered proposals, according to records obtained by The Post through an open records request. Forward Resolutions offered one of the quickest timelines for the review. The longest estimated timeline was a year.
All of the firms had prior experience with forensic lab assessments and reviews except Forward Resolutions, the proposals show, though the two founders have been working in forensics for about 20 years.
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Michael Bromwich, who submitted the $9.5 million bid for law firm Steptoe, filed a formal letter of protest on Oct. 1 after CBI announced it would award the contract to Forward Resolutions, saying the new company was not qualified to do the work. In an interview with The Post, he was critical of CBI’s approach to the overall review.
“What’s quite clear to me is that there is a lack of interest in probing the depth of what went wrong in the crime lab,” he said. “…They’ve decided to go cheap and quick.”
Naugle did not return a request for comment Tuesday and CBI spokesman Rob Low declined to comment. Forward Resolutions was the second-highest scoring bid for the work, CBI documents show, and the second-cheapest option.
Steptoe’s $9.5 million bid was much more expensive than the next highest bid of $1.2 million, the records show. Bromwich also expected the review to take a full year, the longest time estimate among the proposals.
“There is no way a searching, probing review that seems to be called for here can be done in 85 days and generate public confidence they got to the root of the problem,” he said.
Tammy Lichvar, the procurement director for the Colorado Department of Public Safety, wrote in a response to Bromwich’s protest that Forward Resolutions was chosen on the merits of its proposal.
“Forward Resolutions LLC’s detailed project plan, combined with a significantly lower price, allowed for the best value to the state, ensuring both a high-quality assessment and prudent use of taxpayer funds,” she wrote in the Oct. 9 letter.
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