Loudoun school board meeting erupts as parents, educators condemn decision to put teacher Tanner Cross on leave
Loudoun school board meeting on June 8, 2021
A parent who was arrested during a June school board meeting in Loudoun County, Virginia, is accusing the district of trying to cover up an alleged bathroom sexual assault by a gender-fluid individual against his daughter in order to further its transgender rights agenda.
Scott Smith was found guilty of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest in August after he was filmed being dragged by police from the Loudoun County School Board meeting on June 22. He was sentenced to 10 days in jail, all suspended, contingent on a year of good behavior, Loudoun Now reported at the time.
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Smith’s image went viral among left-wingers as an example of parents run amok, and the National School Boards Association cited his arrest in a letter last week requesting the Department of Justice to provide federal law enforcement to respond to an increase in violence against school officials across the country. Attorney General Merrick Garland later pledged to have the Department of Justice and the FBI investigate harassment of school board members.
Now, Smith says there’s much more to his story, telling The Daily Wire that his behavior at the June 22 meeting stemmed from an incident weeks earlier at his ninth-grade daughter’s school, Stone Bridge High School in Ashburn, in which he said a boy wearing a skirt entered the girls’ bathroom and assaulted his daughter on May 28.
"We can confirm a May 28, 2021 case that involved a thorough 2-month-long investigation that was conducted to determine the facts of the case prior to arrest," the sheriff’s office told Fox News. "This case is still pending court proceedings. The Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office is not able to provide any documents that pertain to a pending case." The sheriff's office confirmed that the case involved sexual assault.
All juvenile records are sealed, but Smith’s attorney Elizabeth Lancaster told The Daily Wire that the boy was subsequently charged with two counts of forcible sodomy, one count of anal sodomy, and one count of forcible fellatio.
In response to a public records request by The Daily Wire, the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that a May 28 report with "Offense: Forcible Sodomy [and] Sexual Battery" at Stone Bridge High School does exist.
The suspect was arrested two months later following an investigation by the sheriff's office.
Minutes before Smith’s arrest at the June 22 board meeting, Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) Superintendent Scott Ziegler declared that "the predator transgender student or person simply does not exist," and that to his knowledge, "we don’t have any record of assaults occurring in our restrooms," The Daily Wire reported.
Smith told the outlet that he flew into a rage at the meeting after Ziegler's comments, and after a local progressive activist said she did not believe his daughter’s story.
"If someone would have sat and listened for 30 seconds to what Scott had to say, they would have been mortified and heartbroken," Lancaster, Smith's attorney, told The Daily Wire.
On Aug. 11, nearly two months after Smith’s arrest, the school board voted to approve its transgender rights policy, which requires teachers to call students by the pronouns they identify with and requires bathroom renovations in order to make them more private.
Smith said he received a letter before the vote informing him he was banned from the school board building.
Then on Oct. 6, the sheriff’s office said a 15-year-old boy was charged with sexual battery and abduction of a fellow student at Broad Run High School in Ashburn. In an Oct. 7 press release, the sheriff's office said the suspect forced a female victim into an empty classroom where he held her against her will and inappropriately touched her.
The outlet, citing a government official, reported that the boy accused in the Broad Run case had the same name as the student who allegedly assaulted Smith's daughter.
Lancaster, Smith's attorney, also told the outlet the suspect in the Oct. 6 incident was the same boy who allegedly attacked Smith’s daughter.
Lancaster did not immediately respond to Fox News' request for comment.
Rosiak reported in a tweet thread that the school district had "quietly" transferred the boy to Broad Run High School after the alleged May 28 incident at Stone Bridge. It is unclear whether any disciplinary action was taken against him.
The school district did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment.
Smith’s wife, Jess, said prosecutors told her the suspect’s court date had been postponed from this Thursday to Oct. 25 in order to handle both cases together.
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"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," Scott Smith told The Daily Wire. "I don’t care if he’s homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, transsexual. He’s a sexual predator."
The parents did not immediately respond to Fox News' requests for comment.
Fox News' Emma Colton contributed to this report
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