Town Hall Initiative

Lindy Borchardt
Assistant Criminal District Attorney, Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office

Assistant Criminal District Attorney Lindy Borchardt prosecutes all human trafficking cases including both labor and sex trafficking for the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office. Lindy aggressively and passionately prosecutes human traffickers. She works closely with law enforcement and non-profit organizations to help protect victims and seek justice. Internationally, Lindy travelled to Nepal and Indonesia with Unbound Now to assist in training Judges and prosecutors on effective strategies of prosecuting human trafficking cases. She has been recognized for her commitment to combating human trafficking. She received the 2022 Community Impact Award from 5 Stones Taskforce and the 2023 Three Key Award from Unbound Now.

Lindy served as the Legislative Liaison for the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office during the 87th and 88th Texas Legislative sessions. She worked with State legislators to draft and promote sound criminal justice laws. She also testified before House and Senate Committee hearings as an expert in criminal law and human trafficking cases. Lindy has been a dedicated prosecutor for over 30 years achieving landmark results, both as a trial and appellate lawyer for victims of sexual abuse. She received her Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Texas Tech University and her Doctor of Jurisprudence from the University of Texas. She is married and a mother of two.

Kevin Turner
Commander, Tarrant County Human Trafficking Task Force

Commander Kevin Turner is a supervisor over the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office Human Trafficking and Child Exploitation Unit and serves as the Task Force Coordinator for the Tarrant County Human Trafficking Task Force.

He has been with the Sheriff’s Office for over 32 years and worked in several different divisions: Confinement, Patrol, Warrants, Narcotics, and Internal Affairs.

He also served as a team leader and commander for the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office SWAT Team.

He is a graduate of Institute for Law Enforcement Administration’s School of Police Supervision and the Carruth Police Institutes’ Lieutenant Leadership Series.

He holds a Texas Commission on Law Enforcement Master Peace Officer License and has over 2800 hours of professional law enforcement training.

Maria Orand
Detective, Tarrant County Human Trafficking Task Force

Maria Orand has been with the Fort Worth Police Department for 20 years. She started in patrol, then moved to the backgrounds unit and then to the training academy. She promoted to detective in 2017 and worked in the West Criminal Investigations division until 2021 when she moved to the human trafficking unit.

She investigates all cases and tips that come to the unit involving human trafficking for children, juveniles and adults. While also searching for victims proactively through websites and interviewing runaways and parents.

Her goal is to recover and protect the victim first and foremost by working closely with advocate groups such as Unbound, while preparing a successful case for prosecution for the traffickers.

Maria is married with 4 sons, 2 daughter in laws, and 2 grandchildren. Her youngest son is a junior at Nolan. They are members of Holy Family Catholic Church, she is also a Safe Environment Facilitator for the diocese and she is the Friday School Resource officer for Nolan High School.

Sonya Brooks
Unbound Now, Prevention Education Director, North Texas

Sonya Brooks is the Director of Youth Prevention, for the Ft. Worth office of Unbound, an international Anti-Human Trafficking agency.

Sonya oversaw the “Keeping Students Safe” initiative; a multi-layered program that provided human trafficking prevention, education and training to students, parents, and school personnel across Texas, during the 2019-2020 school year.

The “Keeping Students Safe” project provides training to equip school personnel for prevention and early intervention, offers training to parents and caregivers about vulnerabilities students face that might lead to them becoming targets for traffickers.

Sonya recently completed work with FWISD on a 3-year federal prevention education grant to educate students, staff, and parents on Human Trafficking. During her time working on the grant, Sonya assisted with building the PROTECT curriculum for elementary, middle and high school students. She also assisted in developing the Human Trafficking School Safety Protocol which is used by FWISD and has been hailed as a model by OTIP for other schools and districts across the country to model.

Sonya works with Tarrant and Smith County Juvenile Detention services using a 5-week curriculum to educate both male and female youth on vulnerabilities that can lead them to experience exploitation and /or trafficking. Sonya also helps with training JDC staff on recognizing signs of trafficking and exploitation youth they serve might be displaying.

Sonya also works with other school districts in Tarrant County and East Texas, assisting them in educating staff and students.

Paola Chavez Reyes
Unbound Now, Outreach & Training Program Director

Paola Chavez serves as the Outreach and Training Program Director for Unbound Now. She oversees outreach and training efforts to identify and respond to human trafficking across Unbound Now's service regions. Prior to her role, she has direct experience at The Underground 24/7 Drop-in Center assisting in crisis response and case management for youth at risk or experiencing human trafficking. Paola leads the Outreach Sub-Committee of the Tarrant County Human Trafficking Task Force and co-leads a Labor Trafficking Outreach Working Group. She holds a bachelor's degree in Psychology and a bachelor's degree in Criminal Justice.