Winnebago County prosecutors called former UIC lab manager Jennifer Bash to testify in a pair of fatal driving-while-high cases earlier this year despite being informed in 2024 that her now-shuttered forensic toxicology lab had produced unreliable test results.
In response to recent Injustice Watch inquiries about Bash’s testimony, Winnebago County State’s Attorney J. Hanley said his office had dropped some charges in one of the cases and would launch a review of all convictions based on the University of Illinois Chicago Analytical Forensic Testing Laboratory’s controversial and discredited urine testing. But Hanley said his office is continuing to pursue charges based on the lab’s blood testing, despite known flaws.
Meanwhile, the Illinois Forensic Science Commission released a new report this month calling on the university to identify and disclose every case in which the lab used deficient testing methods and in which Bash had testified using misleading language.
Earlier this year, Winnebago County Assistant State’s Attorney Joe Lesner called Bash to testify in two cases stemming from fatal car crashes in which the lab said the surviving driver was over the legal limit for THC, the psychoactive component of cannabis.
In one, Rockford firefighter Miguel Holland was charged with reckless homicide and aggravated DUI causing death, which is punishable by up to 14 years in prison.
According to a 2023 Rockford Police Department crash report, Holland was driving a fire engine when a woman ran a red light in her Ford Focus, collided with the fire engine, and subsequently died. Her husband, who survived the crash, sued Holland and the city of Rockford, claiming Holland ran the red light.
Illinois law requires all drivers involved in fatal car crashes to submit to drug and alcohol testing. Holland’s blood sample was tested by the UIC lab, which reported he was over the legal limit for THC.
In the second case, Blas Serrano IV was charged with aggravated DUI causing death, driving over the legal limit for THC, and reckless homicide after a 2021 crash that left a woman dead. According to a Rockford Police Department crash report, the woman was driving the wrong way down a one-way street at the time of the collision. Prosecutors charged Serrano based on the UIC lab’s analysis of his urine.
An Injustice Watch investigation last year showed the lab had for years used discredited scientific methods in its urine testing and appeared to conceal unreliability in its blood testing. The lab purported to be able to tell whether someone was over the legal limit for THC while driving based on urine analysis, even though THC doesn’t show up in urine. The lab’s blood testing was compromised by equipment that was not set up to differentiate between legal and illegal forms of THC.
In her Winnebago County testimony in February and July, Bash defended the integrity of her lab’s analysis and denied the widely documented problems with its urine and blood testing methodologies.
“I have seen some of the articles and news things,” Bash said, according to a court transcript. “A lot of the facts in that are incorrect.”
She also dismissed the findings of a 2024 report issued by the lab’s accrediting agency, ANAB, which had investigated complaints about Bash and found she had given “inaccurate and unqualified testimony” in at least one case.
Bash defended her practice of estimating the time of a person’s last use of cannabis based on urine analysis — something forensic scientists are not supposed to do. Forensic toxicologist Marilyn Huestis, one of the world’s leading experts on the impact of THC on driving, told Injustice Watch the approach was “dead wrong.”
Bash resigned from the lab in 2024 and has since worked as an independent forensic consultant. Later that year, state’s attorneys in Cook and DuPage counties issued public disclosures to defense attorneys alerting them of ANAB’s findings about the problems with her testimony.
In addition, the lab’s former director, A. Karl Larsen, sent a letter that year to all Illinois state’s attorney’s offices that had worked with the lab informing them that the lab may have been unable to differentiate between legal and illegal forms of THC in its testing.
Bash has not been certified to perform forensic toxicological testing in the state since March 2025, according to the Illinois State Police. She remains certified by the American Board of Forensic Toxicology. The association, which launched an investigation into Bash in 2025 in response to Injustice Watch questions about her status, recently found there was insufficient evidence to conclude Bash had violated its codes of ethics or professional conduct.
Bash did not respond to a request for comment.
Injustice Watch first reached out to Winnebago County prosecutors about Bash’s testimony on Sept. 8. Two days later, Hanley responded in an emailed statement, saying his office had dropped the DUI charges against Serrano and was launching a review of all cases going back to January 2018 “to determine whether individuals were convicted based solely upon” the UIC lab’s urine testing for THC.
Hanley said his office was continuing to pursue DUI charges against Holland. He did not explain why the prosecution was moving forward when his office had been informed about the problems with the UIC lab’s blood testing more than two years prior.
“Both of these cases completely rise and fall on these labs — [there’s] no evidence of impairment of any kind,” said defense attorney Christopher DeRango, who is representing both Holland and Serrano. “So we’re looking for a dismissal.”
Lake County prosecutors earlier this year dropped another case hinging on evidence provided by the UIC lab, and 18 people have been exonerated in DuPage County from convictions built on its urine testing. The lab ceased testing human samples in February 2024 and shut down entirely last May, according to UIC’s website. However, the university has not issued amended lab reports to indicate which cases might have been affected by faulty testing or Bash’s misleading testimony.
In 2025, a team of attorneys hired by the university issued a report of their investigation into the lab. Though the report stated the lab failed to differentiate between legal and illegal THC and “should have altered its methodologies,” it did not address the university’s oversight failures.
In a statement to Injustice Watch, a UIC spokesperson wrote that the university was aware of the Illinois Forensic Science Commission’s latest recommendations but that it “has already made public its investigative report.”
At its most recent meeting on Sept. 9, members of the commission announced their intention to continue a review of records related to the UIC lab; despite its closure, they noted, the university still bears responsibility for what happened. Under state law, the commission is not empowered to independently investigate allegations of forensic science misconduct or sanction labs and analysts, but it can issue recommendations.
Though UIC representatives told the commission they had no way of identifying cases in which Bash had testified, an Injustice Watch Freedom of Information Act request to the university earlier this year revealed a log of at least 41 such cases between 2017 and 2024.
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