Voters have opted to kick to the curb the most over-the-top villain of the Loudoun County, Virginia, transgender rape coverup — a prosecutor who won her position backed by an absurd sum of George Soros cash, then tried to jail the father of the rape victim despite running on a platform of leniency.
Commonwealth’s Attorney Buta Biberaj, the “progressive” prosecutor who openly boasted that she would simply decline to enforce laws if they didn’t mesh with her personal politics, lost narrowly to Bob Anderson, a Republican who previously held the position from 1996 to 2003.
Her political corpse, and those of every school board member who was in office during the 2021 scandal, joins that of former Superintendent Scott Zeigler, who was convicted of a crime for his role in the rape coverup this fall.
All of the nine school board seats were on the ballot, but only two incumbents bothered to run for re-election after the school system drew national disgrace. Both of those incumbents — both Democrats — were defeated on Tuesday, seeming to reflect a view that even in an environment that otherwise favored Democrats in Virginia and, those who sacrificed the safety and education of children for political reasons could not remain in power.
Biberaj refused to concede the race on Tuesday night, though she was down by more than 1,000 votes with essentially all votes counted.
An attorney from the Bronx, Biberaj ran for prosecutor in 2019 in the semi-rural Virginia county, fueled almost entirely by $800,000 from the liberal billionaire George Soros — a massive sum of money in a race where typical spending is typically more like $150,000. Even with an almost absurd amount of outside cash, she won by less than one percent, leading critics to say the seat was bought by the New York billionaire.
Her constant talk of partisan politics, and clear hatred of Republicans who she unfailingly demonized as “extremists,” was shocking considering that it was up to her whether someone went to prison — or didn’t.
Biberaj, alongside then-school board member Beth Barts, was a member of the “Anti-Racist Parents of Loudoun County,” a secret Facebook group whose members plotted to dox, hack, and destroy the livelihoods of any parent who questioned school COVID closures or critical race theory in schools.
Barts’ involvement in the group led to a successful recall petition, which under Virginia law means the prosecutor is supposed to argue to a judge that the official should be removed. Biberaj did not agree to recuse even though she had a clear conflict of interest, and instead seemed to want to throw the case.
In May 2021, a boy wearing a skirt raped a 15-year-old girl in a high school bathroom. Weeks later, Barts and other Democrats were looking to pass a policy allowing transgender students to use the bathroom of the opposite sex. As parents expressed concern about the safety implications, Barts asked whether there had ever been any sexual assaults in the bathroom, and the superintendent said no, because the concerns were based on bigotry.
Scott Smith, the father of the rape victim, was at the school board meeting. A member of the Anti-Racist Parents then came up to Smith and said she didn’t believe his daughter, and pledged to harm his plumbing business using social media — just as the Facebook group had plotted to do. Smith called her a “b**ch,” and was charged with disorderly conduct and, after struggling with the arresting officer, resisting arrest.
Biberaj personally prosecuted Smith — rather than delegating it to one of her trial attorneys, as is typical for nearly all cases, or dropping it, as she would typically do for other minor crimes. Biberaj ran on a platform of decarceration that painted jails as racist and favored alternatives like “restorative justice” over punitive punishments — but for the father of a rape victim who represented an inconvenient narrative for Democrat priorities, she sought a jail term, which was unheard of for disorderly conduct charges.
Smith was convicted by a judge. He later appealed and a judge threw out the resisting arrest charge, meaning the only remaining charge was “disorderly conduct” for cursing. Gov. Glenn Youngkin granted him a pardon, leading Biberaj to openly stew that she couldn’t put someone in jail for cursing. Late at night, she repeatedly posted on social media bizarre screeds about Smith, saying “Karma will not ever be your friend” and “[Smith’s Twitter handle] you are constantly showing your lack of humanity.”
When it came to the rapist — as opposed to his victim’s father — Biberaj released him from juvenile detention, allowing him to sexually assault another girl. He was ultimately convicted of both assaults, but due to an error by Biberaj, he was never placed on the sex offenders registry.
Sean Kennedy of Virginians for Safe Communities, which has called attention to the politicization of the role of chief law enforcement officer, told The Daily Wire that the result shows that “voters woke up.”
“Standing up for victims and law enforcement is not a partisan or ideological issue,” Kennedy said. “After a four year nightmare, Loudoun County voters woke up to the nightmarish reality of these (un)prosecutors and booted Buta Biberaj. Good riddance.”
Among school board races in Loudoun, Democrat Harris Mahedavi, who was on the school board during the rape coverup, lost narrowly to Republican Deana Griffiths.
After The Daily Wire’s October 2021 expose of the rape coverup, Barts resigned, and was replaced by Democrat Erika Ogedegbe, who went on to vote to conceal from the public the “independent” report that the board commissioned on the rape coverup, which confirmed massive Title IX violations by the district.
On Tuesday, Ogedegbe lost to the Republicans’ preferred candidate Lauren Shernoff, who ran on a platform of getting ideology out of schools.