The governor’s pardon, introduced Sunday, overturns Smith’s conviction for disorderly conduct and affirms his factual innocence. A spokeswoman for the Loudoun County Commonwealth’s Lawyer’s workplace didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark Sunday.
The case drew nationwide consideration at a time of intense political polarization in schooling, turning into entangled in debates over transgender points as a result of the coed was carrying a skirt when he assaulted Smith’s daughter in a faculty lavatory. It additionally infuriated neighborhood members who questioned why the coed was transferred to a different college after the incident; inside months, he assaulted one other lady on the new college.
{The teenager}, who will stay on the Virginia sex-offender registry for the remainder of his life, was despatched to a residential therapy facility and will probably be on probation till he’s 18.
Smith, who was confronted on the board assembly by a neighborhood member threatening to unfold false and malicious rumors about his enterprise, has been wrongly accused of hate crimes and home terrorism, in response to the pardon.
“We righted a improper,” Youngkin stated on “Fox Information Sunday.”
“He ought to have by no means been prosecuted right here. This was a dad standing up for his daughter,” Youngkin stated. “His daughter had been sexually assaulted within the lavatory of a faculty, and nobody was doing something about it.” Even worse, Youngkin stated, “what then occurred was the perpetrator was moved to a different college and sexually assaulted one other younger lady. This was a gross miscarriage of justice.”
Smith thanked the governor Sunday, saying in a written assertion that the motion displays the governor’s recognition that the justice system had been weaponized and politicized. “And whereas this pardon closes one chapter on this ongoing battle,” he stated, “a brand new chapter has now begun. I’ll proceed to battle for folks and their kids who’re affected by these misguided and harmful college insurance policies.”
Smith had beforehand stated his daughter’s assault was the results of “radical gender insurance policies.” He stated he went to the June 2021 board assembly as a result of he was involved about her and different college students’ security, was confronted by individuals who supported new lavatory insurance policies after which unreasonably restrained by law-enforcement officers.
On Sunday, Smith stated what occurred to his daughter was a horrible however preventable tragedy that she should cope with for the remainder of her life, and that the actions of the college system and different businesses have been abhorrent and unacceptable.
His attorneys, Invoice Stanley and Mike Joynes, stated in an announcement Sunday that the pardon was a vindication for Smith, his household, “and for all dad and mom who arise in opposition to the federal government’s try to enact a radical agenda that’s passionate about instructing their kids ‘what to assume,’ fairly than specializing in instructing kids the essential classes they should study with the intention to achieve success later in life.”
The Washington Put up usually doesn’t title victims of sexual assault or defendants charged as juveniles.
A state grand jury report denounced the college system for its dealing with of two sexual assaults by the coed. That investigation, launched by Youngkin and Lawyer Normal Jason Miyares (R) as certainly one of their first acts in workplace, concluded that faculty directors bungled the response to sexual assaults in Could and October 2021. The coed in query was transferred to a different highschool after the primary assault, and dedicated a second assault on the new college. The report discovered that the college district’s superintendent, Scott Ziegler, lied concerning the first incident throughout a faculty board assembly, denying that there had been a sexual assault in a faculty lavatory though he knew an assault had been reported.
Ziegler, who has beforehand stated that he misunderstood the query on the board assembly, and has apologized for the dealing with of the incidents, was fired in December shortly after the report was launched.
Officers at Loudoun County Public Colleges didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark Sunday.
“I’m not a ‘home terrorist,’” Smith stated Sunday in his assertion. “I’m only a father who will go to the ends of the earth to guard his daughter. I cannot ever surrender in that endeavor till my household is each protected and absolutely vindicated.”
