Superintendent, PR Officer INDICTED In Loudoun County High School Sexual Assault Case

Two Loudoun County Public School officials have been hit with a total of four felony and misdemeanor charges related to the school district’s handling of multiple sexual assault cases during the 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 school years. The news vindicates parents who for months demanded answers from administrators, only to be stonewalled and vilified by Democrat leaders in the state.

A grand jury report released last week slammed Superintendent Scott Ziegler and the school board in Loudoun County, Virginia, for their handling of a string of sexual assaults in two district high schools, citing a “stunning” lack of transparency and accountability.

As first reported by the Daily Wire, in May of 2021, a male student dressed in female clothing raped a 9th grade girl in a Loudoun County high school bathroom. Instead of expelling the student, school administrators worked to cover up the incident and transferred the offending student to another district high school, where he sexually assaulted a second girl in a classroom.

The grand jury report found that administrators “failed at every juncture” to prevent the second assault from happening, and engaged in a systematic effort to silence staff members who raised concerns about the offending student. Even the offender’s grandmother reportedly told the school that he was a “sociopath,” and multiple teachers tried to raise concerns with administrators.

At a school board meeting in June, shortly after the first assault, the board began discussing implementation of a new policy that would allow students to use restroom and locker room facilities in accordance with their “gender identity” rather than biological sex. When parents raised concerns about sexual assault, Ziegler claimed that there had “never” been a sexual assault in a Loudoun County school bathroom.

One man then began shouting at Ziegler claiming that he was lying. Police quickly arrested the man, and the entire meeting was declared an unlawful assembly.

That man was Scott Smith, the father of the girl who was raped. In the following weeks, far-left prosecutor Buta Biberaj personally prosecuted Smith in court, attempting to imprison him for misdemeanor charges. Meanwhile, the rapist, whom Biberaj was also in charge of prosecuting, was on house arrest, and would soon be allowed back in school to assault another girl. 

The grand jury report lays out the failures at every level in shocking detail, including how the board demonized parents for demanding accountability. Ziegler now faces three misdemeanor charges, while public information officer Wayde Byard faces one count of felony perjury. 

While it took over a year, the grand jury report and these charges are a monumental win for parents, even if they can’t undo the trauma experienced by the victims and is only a first step toward accountability. And leading the charge was Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin – one of the first signers of our Pledge and a fearless advocate for parents’ rights.

These hard-fought victories are turning the tide in the battle for our schools. These administrators thought they could get away with covering up sexual assault by keeping parents in the dark, and angry moms and dads once again proved them dead wrong.