Former Colorado crime lab scientist accused of misreporting DNA pleads guilty to reduced charges

GOLDEN, Colo. (CN) — A former Colorado crime lab scientist faces up to 16 years in prison after pleading guilty on Tuesday to four charges related to mishandling criminal evidence.

“Ms. Woods knowingly and without authorization deleted records,” said Darren Kafka, chief deputy district attorney for the First Judicial District, in court.

In January 2025, the First Judicial District Attorney’s Office filed more than 100 criminal charges against former Colorado Bureau of Investigation forensic scientist Yvonne Woods, 65, after investigators found she misreported DNA results in dozens of cases spanning more than a decade.

Woods initially pleaded not guilty in February. In exchange for prosecutors filing to dismiss 100 charges against her, however, Woods pleaded guilty to four felonies: cybercrime, perjury, attempt to influence a public servant and forgery.

While the class 2 felony of cybercrime has a sentencing range of 8 to 24 years in prison, prosecutors agreed not to request prison time beyond 16 years.

The issue came to light in 2023 after a CBI intern noticed discrepancies in Woods’ samples while “reviewing quantification data in vestibular swabs within historical sexual assault cases,” a spokesperson for the agency said in a release.

According to an internal review, Woods mishandled 30 sexual assault cases in which prosecutors claim Woods reported “no male DNA found,” when the data indicated DNA had been found or that the sample should have been retested.

Management soon identified other missing quality control data in other cases Woods worked on. Although Woods didn’t outright invent results, the missing data cast doubt on the DNA results in more than 1,000 criminal cases.

Due to the role of Woods’ testimony during the 2012 trial of Michael Clark for the 1994 murder of Marty Grisham, 20th Judicial District Attorney Michael Dougherty filed to give Clark a new trial last year. On bond, 50-year-old Clark is asking for the case against him to be dismissed entirely.

And after the Court of Appeals vacated the 2022 murder conviction for Juan Manuel Castorena based on separate issues with the police lineup, his attorneys sought information on Woods’ involvement in his case, sending the question of how to obtain cross-judicial-district information up to the state Supreme Court. In May, Castorena pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter, for which he was sentenced to 12 years in prison.

In Tuesday’s hearing, Kafka also highlighted Woods’ testimony during the trial against Ryan Hicks when she “knowingly gave a materially false answer under oath.”

First Judicial District Judge Andrew Poland asked Kafka to explain how the parties reached the plea agreement.

“We have an extensive negotiation process,” Kafka said. “We considered the necessity or the importance of a DOC sentence on these non-mandatory charges, and we considered the significance of this crime to the community."

Woods is represented by defense attorneys Lindsay Brown and Tom Ward.

Woods is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 8.

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