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A Disorderly Conduct Prosecution
Biberaj is known for leniency and alternatives to incarceration. On July 30, Peter J. Lollobrigido was released from jail on a
$5,000 unsecured bond while facing charges of strangulation, abduction and assault on a family member. On September 19, he allegedly returned to finish the job, killing his wife with a hammer. A few days after Lollobrigido was released, on August 17, Smith faced court for two misdemeanors, disorderly conduct and obstruction of justice (resisting arrest), for the school board incident.
Lancaster, the Smith family’s attorney, was sure the charges would be dropped. Instead, Biberaj – the top law enforcement officer in a county of 400,000 residents – showed up to personally try the misdemeanor case.
Lancaster explained in court that her client was angry after his daughter was sexually assaulted in a bathroom by a person identifying as “gender fluid,” and reminded her that prosecutors had substantiated the assault and chosen to bring charges. But Biberaj sought jail time against Smith.
“It is incredibly unusual for a disorderly conduct case to even go forward. The idea that they would actually be seeking jail time, I’d guess in my 15 years the number of times I’ve seen that happen would be zero,” Lancaster told The Daily Wire. “It would be completely unheard of for
the prosecutor to handle a misdemeanor.”
Biberaj was not just
the top prosecutor. She was
the prosecutor who had run on a platform of not jailing people for minor crimes, and for using alternate approaches like restorative justice.
“The idea that this is a person who we need to put in a cage was astounding to me given the social justice reform she was pushing. I was blown away,” Lancaster said.
“I’m a bleeding heart liberal,” Lancaster, a former public defender, said. But “I don’t get where the vitriol comes from…that if you don’t believe what I believe, you’re a monster.”
“I’ve known Buta for years. We’ve been colleagues for years,” she said. “When you’re a public defender you get to recognize the humanity of every single person, no matter what they look like or talk like. She used to do that, and I guess it’s gone. And that’s sad to me.”
The charges against Smith were so minor that there was no option to have a jury trial, which Smith believes he would have won. That option is available only through an appeal, which will cost him more than the thousands of dollars he has already spent on legal fees.
On August 11, the school board voted to approve the transgender policy. Smith could not sign up to speak so that policymakers could make their decision with knowledge of the Stone Bridge incident: Days before it, he received a letter informing him he is banned from the school board building.
A Second Sexual Assault
Smith said nothing as his likeness traveled around the world, the avatar of ignorant bigotry. Advisors told him it would be better to let the process against his daughter’s assailant play out. He did not want to risk interfering.
“It has been so hard to keep my mouth shut and wait this out. It has been the most powerless thing I’ve ever been through,” he said. “I don’t care if he’s homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, transsexual. He’s a sexual predator.”
The culprit was expected to plead guilty on October 14, following the negotiation of a plea agreement. But on October 6, the Sheriff’s Office put out a press release that led Smith to believe that the process was not working.
“A teenager from Ashburn has been charged with sexual battery and abduction of a fellow student at Broad Run High School. The investigation determined on the afternoon of October 6, the 15-year-old suspect forced the victim into an empty classroom where he held her against her will and inappropriately touched her,” it said.
A government official told The Daily Wire the name of the student. It was the same name as the boy who allegedly assaulted Smith’s daughter.
The Daily Wire is withholding the name of the suspect because of his age. Reached at home, his mother declined to comment on the allegations.
The prosecutors with whom Smith and his wife had been communicating about the rape case “never alerted us” about the alleged repeat offense, Smith said. He did not believe it could actually be the same person.
But “we called his probation officer and he told me ‘yep, I put him in juvy yesterday.’” They contacted the Special Victims Unit detective, “and she said ‘I can’t tell you what happened, but it happened and it’s bad.’”
Jess contacted prosecutors, whom Jess said told her that his court date had been postponed from October 14 to October 25 in order to handle both charges together.
“I don’t even know why he was at a school,” Smith said. “Why was this motherf—er allowed to do this again?”
The Aftermath
Two girls, allegedly sexually assaulted in school, four months apart, by the same person. And so far, the only person to be convicted of a crime is the victim’s father.
A school policy passed following what appear to be false statements from the superintendent – a policy whose passage would have been politically impossible had Smith’s story seen the light of day.
Will this cause anything to change in Loudoun? Has anyone learned anything? There is no evidence that the answer is yes on either count.
Biberaj did not return a request for comment. Though the criminal justice system is a bedrock component of any community on which everyone must be able to rely, Biberaj did not respond to several inquiries from The Daily Wire over a period of months.
Though the injection of politics into schools and criminal justice have led to pain where there was none before, and enemies where there once were neighbors, it is possible – no less surreal than any other element of this story, at least – that some elected officials of Loudoun County might actually believe this story has a happy ending:
Though Smith’s daughter has been allegedly raped and separately beaten at school, the teen has adopted increasingly strong progressive views over the course of her tenure at LCPS.
“Where does she get these ideas? From school, obviously,” Jess said. “It’s not from our home.”