Fort Bend ISD

Student Biography

Rhea Biswas is currently a senior at Dulles High School. During her high school career, she served as the President of Dulles Model UN, a Varsity debater, and a Fort Bend Student VOICE ambassador. Outside of school, she organized for Sri Preston Kulkarni’s congressional campaign and the Greater Houston Black Lives Matter coalition. She has 6 national qualifications in Oratory and has been recognized by the National Speech & Debate Association as an Academic-All American. Additionally, she received the Servant Leadership Award from former Superintendent Dr. Dupre, a Gold Key from Scholastic Art & Writing, and two AP Scholar with Distinction awards.  As a part of GT Mentorship,  Rhea was mentored under Mrs. Overzenia Ojuri in the Mental Health Division of the Fort Bend Public Defender’s Office. During this experience, she worked with mentally ill, indigent clients and gained invaluable insight into criminal justice and social work. She credits Mrs. Ojuri’s compassionate advocacy as her inspiration for pursuing a lifelong commitment to service. In the fall, Rhea plans to study abroad as a George Washington University Paris Scholar; she will spend a year studying International Law and Sociocultural Anthropology in France, and then will return to D.C. to finish her degree at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. 

Fort Bend County Public Defender's Office, Mental Health Division

Overzenia Ojuri, Mentor

Overzenia Ojuri is a Native New Mexican and lifelong advocate. She studied social services at Texas Tech University and graduated in 1987 with a degree in Human Development. She continued to the Dayton School of Law, earning her J.D. in 1990. She was sworn into New Mexico’s bar that year, beginning her career as a public defender. She headed the Farmington, New Mexico public defense office and founded her own practice to represent indigent clients. In New Mexico, she was one of the few practitioners certified as a ‘Death Penalty Qualified Attorney.’ Over the trajectory of her career, she has worked on every level of criminal offense, from traffic tickets to capital offenses. She moved to Richmond and has worked for Fort Bend Public Defense for 12 years. She now serves as the Division Chief of Mental Health. She’s an ardent advocate for the underprivileged, and she continues to passionately serve our community.

The mission of the Public Defender’s Office is to provide quality representation to indigent defendants. With attorneys at magistration, investigators, social services, and legal expertise, the Public Defender’s Office handles both felony and misdemeanor trial cases as well as defendants with mental illness. Investigating cases properly and eliminating needless resets, the Public Defender’s Office significantly cuts down on pretrial incarceration of indigent defendants while providing accountability and statistics to both the judiciary and county officials. The office aims to reduce the number of days of pretrial incarceration by having attorneys at magistration, investigate trial cases early, assessing needs for mentally ill defendants, and cut down on needless resets.