A Northern Virginia school board is seeking an injunction to stop a grand jury from investigating its handling of the restroom rape of a student by a classmate in a scandalous case that made national news.
The move by the Loudoun County School Board is the latest in a series of measures seemingly aimed at avoiding public scrutiny of the scandal, including commissioning an “independent” review of the rape but then refusing to release it to the public. Victoria LaCivita, spokeswoman for state Attorney General Jason Miyares, called the injunction a waste of taxpayers’ money.
“Loudoun County Public Schools stated publicly they would cooperate with the special grand jury,” LaCivita told WTOP in a statement. “Asking for an injunction is just the latest in a series of efforts to prevent the citizens of Loudoun from learning the truth about conditions existing in Loudoun County public schools that promote criminal activity, proving this investigation is warranted and necessary.”
Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who was elected in November in part due to anger at Northern Virginia’s notoriously woke school policies, issued an executive order for an investigation into the case. The girl was raped by a male student who wore female clothing and used the girls’ restroom. He was later transferred to another school where he attacked another student.
The school board’s motion for an injunction to stop the grand jury probe claims only the county’s far-Left prosecutor Buta Biberaj — who played a role in the handling of the rape by attempting to put the victim’s father in jail — has the power to convene a grand jury. It also calls the grand jury investigation a “fishing expedition.”
“It is troubling that the Board will not want to cooperate. What are they hiding?” Macaulay Porter, a spokeswoman for Youngkin, told WTOP.
The effort to stop the grand jury comes after activists claimed that Republicans were using it to subpoena the “records” of transgender students. Loudoun’s own lawyer later acknowledged he was not aware of any evidence to support the claim.
Ian Prior, of parents group Fight For Schools, said the school board’s latest effort is part of a pattern.
“This is clearly an act of utter desperation from Loudoun County Public Schools,” Prior said. “But it is not surprising. The whole modus operandi of LCPS is to cover things up, suppress the truth, and silence any opposition to its iron fist.”
The Daily Wire broke the blockbuster story of how the rape was handled. In June 2021, as the school system attempted to pass a policy allowing transgender students to use bathrooms that did not correspond to their sex, its superintendent falsely told the public that there had never been any sexual assaults in Loudoun’s bathrooms, and lectured those concerned about safety about bigotry.
One parent, Scott Smith, then became angry because — as the school system knew well — his daughter had been raped by a boy wearing a skirt and a blouse just three weeks prior. But the police arrested Smith and dragged him out of the meeting, bloodying his face in the process. Biberaj personally tried his case and sought jail time, both unheard of for disorderly conduct.
Loudoun had also concealed the rape from state regulators by submitting inaccurate data.
Even as the prosecutor sought jail time for the victim’s father, the rapist was quietly transferred to another school, where he went on to sexually assault a second girl. The transgender policy was passed without the public having learned about the rape.
Related: Loudoun’s NAACP Head Claims Embarrassing Comments Were Made By An Imposter