136 Montana Prosecutors Trained on Human Trafficking Intelligence at Statewide Seminar

A three-day seminar brought together prosecutors statewide, including rural counties without dedicated cybercrime or crime-analysis staff.

WHITEFISH, MT, UNITED STATES, September 9, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- For three days at Fairmont Hot Springs Resort, a substantial share of Montana's charging authority sat in one room. On Thursday, that room turned its attention to a single question: what does it take to build a trafficking case that doesn't fall apart in front of a jury?

One hundred thirty-six Montana county attorneys and deputy county attorneys found out, in a session on human trafficking intelligence held during the Montana County Attorneys Association's (MCAA) 2026 Summer Prosecutor CLE Seminar.

DeliverFund's session followed "Successfully Prosecuting Human Trafficking Cases: Case Study: State v. Yanbin Bao," (docket # DA 24-0139) presented by Andrea Haney and Katrina Thorness Duerk, both Deputy County Attorneys with the Missoula County Attorney's Office. Haney and Thorness Duerk walked the room through the case they built and won together, including the evidentiary gaps they hit and how they closed them. DeliverFund's intelligence supported that case, and Haney credited the organization by name during her presentation, a detail that set up DeliverFund's session perfectly: prosecutors had just watched, case in hand, exactly what that support made possible.

Nic McKinley, founder and CEO of DeliverFund, presented the session. DeliverFund equips law enforcement with protective technology and actionable intelligence in the fight against human trafficking.

The sequence was deliberate. First, Montana prosecutors showed how a trafficking case gets built and won inside their own state. Then DeliverFund addressed the piece many offices don't have the staff or the hours to build themselves: intelligence.

Rather than detailing investigative methods, DeliverFund outlined what a strong trafficking intelligence package should contain, and what prosecutors should be requesting from investigators early, before the gaps surface at trial, when it's too late to close them. The central point of the session was one most of the room hadn't considered: the evidence is often already public.

A trafficking case doesn't end with an arrest. It reaches its real decision point later, when a prosecutor must determine whether the evidence is enough to charge, and whether it will hold in front of a jury. When that decision maker doesn't have the full picture, the case stalls, and it usually doesn't restart.

"You have this subpoena gun. The data is the sight," McKinley said. "It shows you where to point it. It shows you where to fire it. It shows you where to spend your cycles."

Rural jurisdictions are where this matters most. Traffickers frequently operate in counties where investigative capacity is thin. A rural county office may not have a dedicated cyber unit, a crime analyst, or enough personnel to organize digital evidence into a narrative a jury can follow, gaps that prosecutors in the room described as familiar, and not unique to Montana or to rural America.

The 136 prosecutors who attended left with a clearer sense of what trafficking intelligence can provide, what to request from investigators, and who to call when a potential trafficking case lands on their desk.

DeliverFund does not make arrests. It builds the intelligence that empowers the agencies and prosecutors who do make them stick.

The MCAA Summer Prosecutor CLE Seminar was sponsored in part by Westlaw, iCrimeFighter, Karpel Solutions, and Pine Technologies.

About DeliverFund

DeliverFund is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that puts the tools of counterterrorism intelligence to work against human traffickers. Its team is built from the ranks of the intelligence community, law enforcement, and the technology sector, professionals who spent careers hunting other kinds of targets before turning that same tradecraft toward trafficking networks. DeliverFund's analysts work the open-source terrain traffickers rely on, converting public data into actionable intelligence, providing it to more than 9,000 law enforcement officers and prosecutors nationwide, at no cost. DeliverFund is funded entirely by private donors.

Addy Walters
DeliverFund
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