The case against Yvonne Woods, the state’s former top DNA scientist at the Colorado Bureau of Investigation’s forensic lab, was pushed back again Tuesday with an arraignment for her to enter a plea now scheduled for Feb. 11.

The court case will have stretched a year next month.

Woods, who goes by Missy, is at the center of an unprecedented scandal at the state crime lab and stands accused of altering and deleting data in scores of criminal cases, setting off reverberations throughout Colorado’s judicial system.

At the brief hearing Tuesday, Woods, 65, appeared relaxed but stoic. She did not offer a plea as her defense attorney, Lindsay Brown, hinted that they were “very close” to beginning discussions with the prosecution in January.

Although not specified, it could signal the desire for a potential plea deal as Brown further stated such discussions could give “a very good sense of which way this case is heading.”

Jefferson County Senior Deputy District Attorney Darren Kafka also indicated at the hearing his office was open to “fully explore” resolving the case before trial, which could last as long as eight weeks.

First Judicial District Judge Andrew Poland, while noting it has been 11 months since Woods was first charged, agreed to delay the arraignment. Woods has not yet entered any plea in the case.

On Jan. 22, Woods turned herself in to authorities in Jefferson County and was released on bond. She is charged with one count of cybercrime, one count of first-degree perjury, 48 counts of attempting to influence a public servant, and 52 counts of forgery in cases across the Front Range dating back more than a decade.

She previously waived a preliminary hearing, and her arraignment has been delayed multiple times during this past year as her defense team has asked for more time to wade through the evidence.

Once considered the go-to expert in DNA evidence in criminal cases, Woods’ public fall from grace began in September 2023 when an intern in the CBI lab alerted supervisors of potential problems, touching off an internal investigation.

That inquiry revealed decades of alleged misconduct where steps in her analysis were skipped or compromised, resulting in potentially false results. 

Although the criminal case against Woods involves 58 instances of alleged wrongdoing, CBI has acknowledged it has found a total of 1,045 criminal cases impacted, or roughly one in 10 of the more than 10,786 cases she handled during her 29-year career at the state agency.

Woods retired with a pension just prior to the scandal being made public.

In addition to being flagged in 2023, CBI’s internal investigation revealed two previous instances — in 2014 and 2018 — when her work was called into question by others in the lab. But there was no real consequence to Woods following that other than her being temporarily relieved of duties and referred to mental health counseling.

Prosecutors, defense attorneys and the public were never told about the previous incidents.

Even now, the full impact of the scandal remains unknown, as much of the information about what she allegedly did and which cases were affected has not been made public.

From the beginning, there was concern, especially among defense attorneys, that mishandled evidence or inaccurate results could mean an untold number of people had been wrongly imprisoned.

CBI continues to say it is confident that no one has been wrongly imprisoned due to her actions.

Others are less sure since the full details of what went wrong in the lab continue to be shielded.

There is also concern that by altering or deleting DNA findings in sexual assault cases, suspects may have been able to escape arrest. In her arrest affidavit, it is alleged she changed decimal points in her findings to make it appear that there was less DNA found so she was able to skip further testing.

In addition, in the immediate aftermath of the scandal, the time it took to process a rape kit by CBI rose to more than 500 days as lab workers were diverted to review Woods’ past results. CBI now lists on its website the time to process a rape kit as 360 days.