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Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) pardoned a Loudoun County father whose daughter had been sexually assaulted at school and whose arrest had sparked outrage, becoming a national symbol of the growing parents’ rights movement in schools.
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Scott Thomas Smith was convicted of obstruction of justice and disorderly conduct after he was forcibly removed by police from a school board meeting he attended following the assault on his daughter by another student in 2021. He appealed to the circuit court, and the obstruction of justice conviction was dismissed, according to the attorneys representing him on the appeal. They said a trial on the disorderly conduct conviction had been scheduled for later this month.
The governor’s pardon, announced Sunday, affirms Smith’s “factual innocence” for disorderly conduct.
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The commonwealth’s attorney for Loudoun County, Buta Biberaj (D) — whom a judge recused from Smith’s case — said Youngkin’s action was a political stunt. “This is an unprecedented and inappropriate intervention into an active legal case,” Biberaj said. “He chose to interfere in the legal process, and not for justice, but for political gain.”
The case drew national attention at a time of intense political polarization in education, becoming entangled in debates over transgender issues because the student was wearing a skirt when he assaulted Smith’s daughter in a school bathroom. It also infuriated community members who questioned why the student was transferred to another school after the incident; within months, he assaulted another girl at the new school.
The teenager, who will remain on the Virginia sex-offender registry for the rest of his life, was sent to a residential treatment facility and will be on probation until he is 18.
Loudoun teen whose assaults caused political firestorm will be put on sex offender list
Smith, who was confronted at the board meeting by a community member threatening to spread false and malicious rumors about his business, has been wrongly accused of hate crimes and domestic terrorism, according to the pardon.
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“We righted a wrong,” Youngkin said on “Fox News Sunday.”
“He should have never been prosecuted here. This was a dad standing up for his daughter,” Youngkin said. “His daughter had been sexually assaulted in the bathroom of a school, and no one was doing anything about it.” Even worse, Youngkin said, “what then happened was the perpetrator was moved to another school and sexually assaulted another young woman. This was a gross miscarriage of justice.”
But Biberaj said video of the incident at the school board meeting showed that an officer had intervened when he saw Smith physically threatening a woman, that a physical altercation resulted between Smith and the deputy, and that two other deputies had to restrain Smith.
Smith thanked the governor Sunday, saying in a written statement that the action reflects the governor’s recognition that the justice system had been weaponized and politicized. “And while this pardon closes one chapter in this ongoing battle,” he said, “a new chapter has now begun. I will continue to fight for parents and their children who are affected by these misguided and dangerous school policies.”
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Smith had previously said his daughter’s assault was the result of “radical gender policies.” He said he went to the June 2021 board meeting because he was concerned about her and other students’ safety, was confronted by people who supported new bathroom policies and then unreasonably restrained by law-enforcement officers.
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On Sunday, Smith said what happened to his daughter was a horrible but preventable tragedy that she will have to deal with for the rest of her life, and that the actions of the school system and other agencies were abhorrent and unacceptable.
His attorneys, Bill Stanley and Mike Joynes, said in a statement Sunday that the pardon was a vindication for Smith, his family, “and for all parents who stand up against the government’s attempt to enact a radical agenda that is obsessed on teaching their children ‘what to think,’ rather than focusing on teaching children the critical lessons they need to learn in order to be successful later in life.”
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Biberaj said Youngkin’s comments on Fox that the case should never have been prosecuted “sends a message that he believes that the deputies lied about the facts of the case, that the magistrate wrongfully issued the arrest warrants, and the special prosecutor from Stafford, who is prosecuting the case, was engaging in wrongful prosecution … It’s a slap in the face for law enforcement.”
A Virginia circuit court judge last year recused Biberaj from Smith’s case after a request from his attorney to disqualify her. Smith’s attorneys had argued that she was biased against him and other parents who challenged the school system’s transgender policies.
Biberaj said the judge appointed a Republican prosecutor so the public could have confidence in the case.
The commonwealth’s attorney for Stafford County, who took over the case after Biberaj was recused, and a spokesman for the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office could not immediately be reached for comment Sunday.
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Smith’s attorneys said his daughter was assaulted by “a boy claiming to be ‘gender fluid.’” Biberaj said that was not accurate; she said he was not transgender or gender fluid.
Grand jury report condemns Loudoun schools’ handling of sex assaults
The Washington Post generally does not name victims of sexual assault or defendants charged as juveniles.
A state grand jury report denounced the school system for its handling of two sexual assaults by the student. That investigation, launched by Youngkin and Attorney General Jason Miyares (R) as one of their first acts in office, concluded that school administrators bungled the response to sexual assaults in May and October 2021. The student in question was transferred to another high school after the first assault, and committed a second assault at the new school. The report found that the school district’s superintendent, Scott Ziegler, lied about the first incident during a school board meeting, denying that there had been a sexual assault in a school bathroom even though he knew an assault had been reported.
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Ziegler, who has previously said that he misunderstood the question at the board meeting, and has apologized for the handling of the incidents, was fired in December shortly after the report was released.
Loudoun fires superintendent after grand jury blasts schools’ handling of sex assaults
Officials at Loudoun County Public Schools did not immediately respond to requests for comment Sunday.
“I am not a ‘domestic terrorist,’” Smith said Sunday in his statement. “I am just a father who will go to the ends of the earth to protect his daughter. I will not ever give up in that endeavor until my family is both protected and fully vindicated.”
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