Wisconsin AG Kaul’s Crime-Lab Leaders’ Firm Won $777,044. Who Approved Outside Work?

Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul must answer a question about two people running his state crime labs: Who approved their outside consulting work, and what safeguards protected their public duties?

The question carries a $777,044 price tag, and paperwork leads straight to Colorado.

Nicole Roehm, administrator of Wisconsin’s Division of Forensic Sciences, and deputy administrator Jennifer Naugle helped establish Forward Resolutions LLC in 2024. The firm won a $777,044.43 contract, signed in November 2024, to examine the Colorado Bureau of Investigation’s forensic operations after a major DNA testing scandal.

The contract included more than $56,000 for travel.

From Wisconsin Right Now:

On Nov. 20, 2024, Jennifer Naugle signed the contract, executing a $777,044.43 agreement between Forward Resolutions LLC and CBI. In a January 21, 2025 press release, CBI announced that Forward Resolutions LLC had been “awarded a contract to conduct a complete assessment of CBI policies, procedures, and operational performance within forensics services.” The LLC has a rather vague footprint.
They ultimately produced a 91-page report, which you can read here. “Forward Resolutions formed a multidisciplinary team of eight highly skilled executive leadership professionals with expertise in the disciplines relevant to CBIFS, including DNA casework and database, serology, toxicology, firearms, latent prints, seized drugs, trace chemistry, and evidence,” it says.

The award went to the company, not directly into the two officials’ pockets. Its Colorado assessment used eight professionals, and the published record doesn’t establish how the company divided its revenue or who performed each task. Yet the firm’s ownership and the size of the undertaking invite an obvious question: How much time did this outside work demand from Wisconsin’s senior crime-lab administrators?

Colorado received something substantial. Forward Resolutions examined policies, interviewed 136 forensic staff members and 29 other stakeholders, and reviewed lab operations. Its July 2025 report included 52 recommendations covering leadership, staffing, quality control, and performance. Colorado had hired the firm to find weaknesses in a system already facing questions about its forensic evidence.

Wisconsin’s own laboratories had problems to solve. The DOJ’s 2024 annual report shows that the labs received 8,965 cases, down from 9,388 in 2023. Average DNA casework turnaround rose from 108 to 129 days. Average toxicology turnaround increased from 64 to 82 days, even as toxicology assignments declined.

Those numbers represent delays in producing answers that affect prosecutions and crime victims.

The numbers require care. DNA analysts processed more individual items in 2024 than in 2023, and toxicology’s median turnaround time slightly improved. Kaul has pointed to growing case complexity and staffing shortages. He sought 19 more crime-lab positions in the 2025-27 budget and received none. None of those details answer whether his two senior administrators obtained clearance to run a sizeable consulting project elsewhere.

Wisconsin has rules for precisely this problem. Administrative Code ER-MRS 24.045 requires state agencies to establish outside-employment guidelines, identify activities that may create conflicts, and require advance approval. State law permits outside work that doesn’t interfere with official duties. It also forbids public records from using their positions for improper private gain. The distinction requires examining records, not speculating.

Did Roehm and Naugle file the required requests? Who reviewed them? Did Kaul or another supervisor authorize the arrangement? Were Colorado site visits taken during vacation, leave, or other approved time? What safeguards kept Wisconsin’s personnel, equipment, and confidential information separate from private business?

The answers exist in records, and the attorney general’s office can explain them.

Questions sent to Kaul’s office and two administrators during the investigation went unanswered when the story was published October 7. The absence of a public explanation doesn’t establish misconduct. Nor does a completed Colorado report tell Wisconsin taxpayers whether their state received every hour of leadership it paid for.

From Wisconsin Right Now:

Back at home, the Wisconsin crime lab continued to disintegrate, taking in far fewer cases with greater delays in key categories like DNA testing. WRN reached out to Kaul’s office, Naugle and Roehm and asked whether this is appropriate due to the problems in the Wisconsin Crime Lab – and whether their focus should be solely there – and did not hear back.
Despite holding demanding, full-time public roles steering Wisconsin’s state forensic infrastructure, the LLC began bidding on the lucrative private contract out of state. Notably, neither official makes any mention of Forward Resolutions LLC on their professional LinkedIn profiles.
The Forward Resolutions contract called for the consultants to receive more than $155,000 after each of three site visits to Colorado, which occurred between January and April 2025, but it’s unclear who exactly made the trips.

Kaul is seeking another term while the handling of forensic evidence remains an issue in Wisconsin’s attorney general race. His department can settle much of the uncertainty by releasing its outside-employment policy, approval documents, and the safeguards it imposed. Crime victims waiting for evidence deserve clear answers, and so do the people funding the labs.

The contract is documented, so are the delays. What Wisconsin still needs is documentation of the decision that allowed those two responsibilities to coexist.

Who holds government officials accountable when important questions go unanswered? PJ Media digs into the documents, follows the facts, and asks the questions taxpayers deserve answered. Support independent journalism and enjoy 60% off PJ Media VIP with promo code FIGHT.