Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin on Sunday granted an “absolute pardon” to the father who was arrested at a school board meeting after the superintendent lied about his daughter being raped by a boy in a skirt.
The pardon says that in June 2021, Scott Smith “exercised his constitutional right to attend a public meeting of the Loudoun County School Board to observe the proceedings, during which time a member of the community threatened to spreading false and malicious information about Mr. Smith’s business with the intention of damaging his reputation.”
“After a subsequent verbal confrontation, Scott Thomas Smith was charged with obstruction of justice and disorderly conduct,” and Smith was quickly convicted, although an appeals court disqualified the prosecutor over concerns about “the integrity of the accusation”, the pardon. keep on.
“CONSIDERING THAT Scott Thomas Smith has been publicly and falsely accused of “domestic terrorism” and “hate crimes” for trying to defend his sexually assaulted daughter… I have decided it is just and proper to grant this ABSOLUTE PARDON that reflects Scott Thomas. Smith’s de facto innocence,” he concludes.
Smith’s story encouraged parents who were concerned that schools had sacrificed student safety and academic rigor for ideology. Youngkin’s promise to be a voice for these parents helped usher him into office a month after The Daily Wire revealed Smith’s story.
Democratic U.S. Attorney Buta Biberaj countered her typical stances on crime and argued personally to put Smith in prison on a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct. Smith was denied a jury because it was a misdemeanor in General District Court, and a judge quickly convicted him.
He appealed the sentence and would have been entitled to a jury in the appeals court. But the legal saga has dragged on for years, taking a financial and emotional toll on Smith, who says he’s grateful Youngkin allowed him to move on.
“I’m grateful that the Youngkin administration gave me a way out of these charges that should never have happened,” Smith told The Daily Wire. “It’s a little bittersweet, because I really wanted to win this on the court. But unfortunately our justice system is so messed up at the moment that I didn’t feel like I could have a fair chance in court.”
“That’s what should scare every American, is that I had to take this on, because I couldn’t trust our justice system,” Smith said.
As Smith’s legal saga dragged on, so did the same system that prosecuted Smith acquitted Loudoun County Public Schools spokesman Wayde Byard on perjury charges. On the day Smith’s daughter was raped, Byard wrote an email to parents in which he falsely blamed Smith for the police presence and falsely said no students were in danger, even though the rapist remained at large .
The rapist was eventually convicted in juvenile court, but due to a mistake by Biberaj, he will not be placed on the sex offender registry.
Smith said that on the night of the June 2021 school board meeting, where school board members were discussing passing a policy to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms of their choice, her daughter intended to say through a megaphone like a few weeks before. , she had been raped in a school bathroom by a boy wearing a skirt.
“That’s why Jackie attacked us, it was to stop us [my daughter] to talk,” he said, referring to Jackie Schworm, a radical leftist who had just spoken to Smith’s daughter, then sought out Smith and threatened to use social media to ruin his business. A police officer grabbed Smith from behind and a fight ensued.
An appeals court said the prosecutor may have been biasedbut that the fact that he damn Schworm was enough to try again. Smith said that even if his appeal had prevailed, “radical prosecutors” had already punished him by putting him through a years-long process.
“The damage has already been done,” Smith said. “This process has been absolutely brutal, because it took away part of the family treasure [could have gone to] my daughter’s situation.”
Media around the world put up an image of Smith being dragged away by police and used him as a symbol of how angry conservative parents were allegedly disrupting school board meetings out of bigotry and ignorance. The National Association of School Councils compared him to a domestic terrorist in a letter the Biden administration used to mobilize counterterrorism forces against parents.
Only The Daily Wire bothered to ask Smith if he had a good reason to be angry with the school board. It turned out that not only had her daughter been raped, and the superintendent lied about it, but the school system kept the rapist in schoolwhere he sexually assaulted a second girl.
“They damaged me and my family from the time my daughter reported being sexually assaulted, pretty much until now,” she said.
Biberaj wanted to “make an example of me to scare people from talking. And frankly, it worked,” Smith said, noting that far fewer parents have attended school board meetings and spoken out since his arrest.
He said his next legal step will be to sue the prosecutor for misconduct and possibly the National School Boards Association.
Youngkin’s pardon, which enjoys high approval ratings in what was once considered a blue state, continues to fulfill his campaign promise to focus on parents’ rights to education. On Tuesday, he will hold a talk about “Parents Matter” in Loudoun at Cornerstone Chapel, a church that was put on an enemy list by a liberal activist group called Loudoun Love Warriors.
The church’s pastor said “it’s ironic that those who embrace ‘tolerance’ the most are actually some of the most intolerant people towards those of us with different views and values.”
A member of the Love Warriors was arrested felony charges this month Biberaj has not responded to questions about whether he intends to drop the charges, prosecute or recuse himself.
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