Law enforcement officers create the front line of defense in the fight to end sex trafficking. Our team of expert trainers brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in training law enforcement to recognize and build cases to end sex trafficking.

Dr. Stephany Powell is a Master Level Trainer with the Selah Way Foundation. She is retired from the LAPD as a sergeant in charge of a vice unit and accepted the leadership role at Journey Out in October 2013. In addition to her LAPD tenure, Dr. Powell is a Doctor of Education in Organizational Leadership and utilizes that singular combination in several ways. She created and facilitated Team Building and Executive Leadership workshops for the Fire and Police departments. She is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Behavioral Science at Los Angeles Trade Technical College. She is a powerful speaker, a tenacious educator and advocate for change, and one of the premiere experts in this field. Dr. Powell has been featured by Los Angeles local media, both and featured by CNN/HLN.

In August of 2020, Dr. Powell accepted a national position with the National Center on Sexual Exploitation as the Director of Law Enforcement Training and Victim Services.

Corinne Stannish, retired Captain of the Sarasota Police Department, received her B.S. from the University of South Florida in Criminal Justice. After being hired by the Sarasota Police Department in 1988, she started her career in the Patrol Division and worked in the Community Resource Team. There she had the opportunity to work with underprivileged youth and served as a Girl Scout Troup Leader in two housing projects. During her early career at the Agency, she worked in the Planning and Inspections Unit, which was the policy writing arm of the Police Department as well as performing audit inspections to insure policy and procedure were being followed.

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Afterwards she transferred into the Criminal Investigation Division where she investigated Crimes Against Children for ten years. Corinne was a member of the first organized Honor Guard Unit at the Sarasota Police Department and was a Hostage Negotiator for response to critical incident scenes involving barricaded, hostage or suicidal subjects.

After becoming a Sergeant in 2006, she was a Shift Commander on the road as well as a District Commander, serving as a liaison between the Community and the Police Department. She was the first female to be promoted to the rank of Captain, serving in the Support Services Division followed by the Criminal Investigation Division. As the Commander of the Detective Division, she directly oversaw the Street Crimes Unit, which has partnered with Selah Freedom and TYLA (Turn Your Life Around), a successful prostitution court diversion program and actively worked on building a human trafficking unit.

Corinne recently retired after thirty years of law enforcement service and is a Master Level Trainer with Selah Way Foundation. Her passion is training on TYLA, CSEC (Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children) and other human trafficking courses to share with other law enforcement officers, the wealth of success that can be had when partnering with non-governmental agencies on the war against modern day slavery. Her personal quote is “Prostitution is not the world’s oldest profession, but the world’s oldest abuse story.” She is married to a retired law enforcement captain and is the proud parent of a son who is a nurse in their area and two daughters who attend college.

Meet Our National Level Trainers

Adam Kavanaugh served as Sergeant of the St. Louis Police Department with 27 years of experience.  Sgt. Kavanaugh’s career began in the City of St. Louis and ultimately moved to the St. Louis County Police Department. There Sgt. Kavanaugh was an Undercover Detective in the departments Vice Unit.  Sgt Kavanaugh performed undercover narcotic, gun purchasing and various undercover roles on cases related to murder for hire, prostitution/trafficking, to mention a few.  

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Upon Sgt. Kavanaugh being promoted from the detective bureau he was assigned as a supervisor of the Vice/Narcotics unit where he supervised all aspects of undercover work.  Sgt. Kavanaugh is currently the Commander of the Eastern District of Missouri Human Trafficking Task Force, the Deputy Commander of the state of Missouri’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and assigned as a task force officer with the FBI.  Sgt. Kavanaugh focuses his efforts on the educating and training of law enforcement in the area of identifying and locating victims of sex trafficking, sexual exploitation of minors, and identification of their perpetrators.   Sgt. Kavanaugh also conducts trainings for parents, students, medical professionals and the community about human trafficking and how to keep their children safe from online predators.

Corporal Alan T. Wilkett has served more than 22 years as a public service official, including with the Indiana State Police and the Jackson County (Ohio) Sheriff’s Office. Cpl. Wilkett’s career has included positions in Property Crimes, Major Crimes, Cold Case, Narcotics, Child Abuse, Patrol, and Court Security. He has served as a chief deputy, captain, commander, and director of public safety. He is a member of the Tampa Bay Regional Human Trafficking Task Force and is an expert in how predators use technology to target their victims.

Dan Murphy is a highly accomplished security, investigations and law enforcement professional with an outstanding 35 year career in law enforcement, including over 20 years in the NYPD. He has experience in a wide variety of patrol and investigative functions handling countless cases of violence, narcotics trafficking, kidnapping (over 125 cases), human trafficking and more. He is a seasoned leader, author, educator, and sought-after speaker and subject matter expert on various topics including workplace violence prevention and response program development, global security, international travel safety and security, physical security, executive protection and financial fraud investigative techniques. Murphy has 15 years of experience as a Corporate Security Director and Chief Security Officer, tasked with the overall safety and security of hundreds of thousands of people, in thousands of facilities, across numerous countries. He has extensive knowledge of security technology, and established and emerging best practices in building security programs. He possess a great many contacts within a variety of law enforcement, and private sector business worlds that may benefit The Selah Way Foundation's mission. He is an OSAC member with the US Dept of State, public private partnership and follows global security trends to share best practices.  Murphy has run several federal RICO investigations of violent gangs prosecuted in several US Attorney’s Offices, each included elements of human trafficking for sex trafficking.

Captain Patrick V. Ledwith began his 32-year career in law enforcement at the age of 21 as a full certified, Reserve Officer with the Sarasota Police Department in 1983.  He received the Most Active Reserve award in 1984. His enthusiasm and dedication led to a full-time position as a sworn officer with the agency in March of 1985. He has attended Manatee Junior College, Eckerd College and Saint Leo College where he studied a variety of law enforcement and leadership tracks. He had the good fortune to serve in a variety of capacities and positions with the Sarasota Police Department to include; Patrol Officer, Crime Prevention, Patrol Sergeant, Internal Affairs, Support Services, Patrol Lieutenant, District Commander, Narcotics Commander and Criminal Investigations Captain.

Pat has always sought progressive ways to address crime issues throughout his career by encouraging community involvement and partnerships.  He encouraged officers under his command to utilize problem-solving strategies; realizing arrest was not always the best solution to solving crime problems within the community he served.  He worked closely with community and other criminal justice entities to develop programs such as the Sarasota Police Department Drug Market Intervention, a court diversion program aimed at non-violent youthful drug offenders and Turn Your Life Around (TYLA), a highly successful prostitution court diversion program, one of the first of its kind in the country.

Pat retired as the Captain of the Criminal Investigations Division in May of 2015 and continues his passion for the profession by following current events and researching the latest trends effecting law enforcement officers today.  He currently serves as a “member at large” on the Criminal Justice Academy Advisory Board for the Sarasota County Technical Institute.  He is married to his wife Cori, also a retired police captain, since 1999 and they have raised three beautiful children. 

Cindy Malott serves as the Director of Advocacy Services for Crisis Aid International.  She coordinates programmatic development for CAI Refuge safe transitional living home for adolescent and adult survivors of sex trafficking.  She also coordinates Crisis Aid’s law enforcement, medical and community crisis response to victims of sex trafficking, exploitation and child sexual abuse.  From 2003 to September 2018 Ms. Malott served as the Crisis Intervention Supervisor for the YWCA St. Louis Regional Sexual Assault Center. In this role she supervised the sexual assault and sex trafficking crisis intervention services to 17 hospital emergency departments in the St. Louis Metropolitan area as well as coordinating sexual assault victim advocacy to local and federal law enforcement.  

Ms. Malott has provided national trainings on Enhancing Our Response to Cold Hit DNA “CODIS” Victims, while serving as a member of the Advisory Panel for the National Center for Victims of Crime’s, U.S. Department of Justice OVW Backlogged DNA Project. She also coordinated the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) trainings for the Eastern Region of Missouri in conjunction with SSM Saint Louis University Hospital.  Ms. Malott also served as the coordinator of the St. Louis Regional Sexual Assault Task Force from 2012 to 2017 (the Regional SART) consisting of representatives from advocacy, law enforcement, medical professionals and other SART members. 

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Ms. Malott received the first Citizen Service Award in 2010 for Outstanding Service to Victims of Sexual Assault from the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. She was also the recipient of the Distinguished Service Award from the Office of the United States Attorney for Eastern District of Missouri for her work with victims of Domestic Sex Trafficking in 2013.  Ms. Malott received an award in appreciation for unwavering dedication and support to victims of sexual violence from the Bureau of Enforcement, Investigative Services from the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department in 2016 for her advocacy as well as her work as a forensic artist. 

Detective Olahshina Williams is a Detective for the New York City Police Department. She has worked in the Human Trafficking Unit for five years and has been with NYPD for 17 years. Prior to working in law enforcement, she helped victims as a Social Worker for various profit and nonprofit organizations. She loves what she does, which is working directly with survivors and rescuing sex trafficking victims. She is also a Certified Forensic Experiential Trauma Interviewer and expert in educating the public about human trafficking.

Theodore Swanson joined the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office in 2006 and has been in the Human Sex Trafficking Unit since its inception. Prior to joining the trafficking unit, Mr. Swanson was in the Victim Impact Program where he focused on matters involving uniquely vulnerable victims. There he handled cases involving domestic violence, stalking, sex crimes and child abuse, including murders of children and babies. Mr. Swanson has conducted over 100 criminal jury trials.

Since joining the trafficking unit, Mr. Swanson has focused exclusively on sex trafficking matters, including trying 11 matters to verdict and securing convictions in each. Mr. Swanson has accompanied law enforcement agencies on numerous undercover operations and handles his cases from filing to sentencing, which has given him the opportunity to dive deeply into both the psyche of the trafficker and the victim. As part of his everyday duties in gathering evidence, Mr. Swanson has listened to hundreds of hours of jail calls involving suspected traffickers, has read tens of thousands of text messages and social media posts, and has spoken to both victims and traffickers.  

Beyond his everyday duties as a trial attorney, Mr. Swanson conducts trainings with the Los Angeles Police Department nationally. He also educates community groups and governmental and prosecutorial agencies both in the U.S. and internationally.

In his free time, Mr. Swanson enjoys writing, snowboarding, playing sports and hanging out with his children. 

Prostitution Court Diversion Program, One of the First of its Kind

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TYLA (Turn Your Life Around), is a deeply effective approach to prostitution diversion. It incorporates outreach, strong collaboration with community organizations, the judicial system, State Attorney's Office and re-directed law enforcement philosophy. Through the TYLA Program, survivors are supported by Selah Freedom's expert Outreach team during judicial proceedings and are eligible to have all prostitution-relation arrests expunged from their record.

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The Selah Way Foundation is honored to partner with the judicial system, law enforcement, services providers, and the state attorney's office to provide training in our best practices and court diversion model. The TYLA program not only assists in the rescue and empowerment of survivors, but it also creates an avenue for traffickers to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law by training survivors on how to develop and deliver impact statements. These powerful impact statements ultimately drive up convictions.

Meet Our TYLA Trainers

Judge Erika Quartermaine currently serves as a Sarasota County Judge.  She presides over county criminal and civil divisions.  She is a proponent of problem solving courts and has presided over several of them. In 2016, Judge Quartermaine partnered with various members of the criminal justice community to start the Turn Your Life Around Court which is a specialized program for those charged with prostitution and related crimes. Governor Scott appointed Judge Quartermaine to the bench in 2013 following her nomination by the Twelfth Judicial Circuit's Judicial Nominating Committee. She earned a bachelor's degree in Economics from Stetson University and a law degree from the University of Miami School of Law with honors. She later joined the State Attorney's office where she practiced as a prosecutor in both the misdemeanor and felony divisions, prosecuting thousands of defendants including, violent felons, career criminals, gang members, and she was the first prosecuting attorney of the State Attorney's Office's white collar division where she specialized in fraud and elder exploitation cases.

In 2015, Judge Quartermaine was named in the 40 Under 40 in the West Coast of Florida by the Business Observer.  In 2016, she was the recipient of the Sarasota County NAACP Chapter’s Freedom Award for Public Service and was featured as a West Coast Woman by the West Coast Woman Magazine.  In 2017, she received the Unity Award from the 941 CEO Magazine and was one of five nominees for the Florida Supreme Court’s Chief Justice Award.   In 2018, she received an acknowledgment from the Sarasota Chapter of the Florida Association of Women Lawyers for her work with Mental Health Court. Additionally, she has served as the President of the Thomas E. Penick Jr. Elder Law Inn of Court and on the Board of the John M. Scheb Inn of Court. She serves a faculty member in the Conference of County Judges and she is an adjunct professor at the University of South Florida. 

Craig Schaeffer has been a prosecutor with the 12th Judicial Circuit since 1993. He graduated from Barry University in 1990 Summa Cum Laude, and then attended law school at the University of Florida, where he graduated with honors.  He started his prosecution career in the Misdemeanor Division in Manatee County, and was promoted to the Felony Division in Sarasota in 1995.  He was promoted to the Child Sex Crimes Unit in early 2000, where he prosecuted some of the worst child predators in the circuit. He successfully prosecuted some of the first sexually violent predator cases under the new Jimmy Ryce Act in the early 2000’s.   He also prosecuted dozens of homicide cases, including the high profile death penalty case of Carlie Brucia, who was kidnapped, sexually battered, and murdered by Joseph Smith.  He was promoted to the position of Felony Division Chief in 2004, and to Chief Assistant State Attorney in 2013, where he continues to serve.

In 2013, working with Selah Freedom and the Sarasota Police Department, Craig was instrumental in setting up the Turn Your Life Around (TYLA) program to help women who were charged with prostitution offenses and were victims of human trafficking.  Craig helped morph the TYLA  program into a specialty court program in 2016, which was the first devoted human trafficking court in the State of Florida and one of the first nationally.  Craig has helped train other law enforcement agencies, state attorney’s offices, and judges, both in Florida and nationally, in setting up a therapeutic human trafficking court similar to TYLA. He has been Board Certified by the Florida Bar in Criminal Trial Law since 2004, and teaches criminal law and criminal procedure and evidence as an adjunct professor at the State College of Florida since 2001.   He also continues to teach new recruits at the police academy, as well as advanced courses in Child Sexual Abuse investigations to seasoned law enforcement personnel.  He has always been very involved in the local legal community, volunteering as a teen court judge, as a Board member  on the local bar association, and a member and Past President of the John Scheb American Inn of Court.

Misty LaPerriere is the National Law Enforcement Liaison and Trainer with Selah Freedom. She works directly with survivors of sex trafficking, trains law enforcement and the judicial system on this issue, while also providing certificate completion for officers. She serves on the 12th Judicial Circuit Anti-Human Trafficking Coalition and is a survivor herself and has worked with survivors for over a decade. Misty is designated as a Victims Advocate through the Florida Crime Prevention Training Institute for Human Trafficking with the Attorney General’s Office. Her certifications include 2018 Human Trafficking Summit from the Florida Attorney General’s Office, Certified Advanced Gang Specialist from the Florida Gang Investigators Association, Certified CSEC trainer.