Parents of Virginia girl raped in school bathroom ask judge to spare 'skirt-wearing' teen
LOUDOUN COUNTY, VIRGINIA: A Loudoun County teenager who was convicted of sexually assaulting two girls in two different schools in May and October last year has been spared jail after the family of one of the victims urged a judge to do so. The family has asked the judge to send the boy to a residential treatment center instead so that he can change himself and become a better person.
Juvenile court judge Pamela Brooks on October 25 ruled that the suspect,15, indeed raped the 15-year-old girl on May 28 in the bathroom at Stone Ridge High School in Leesburg, Virginia. The case drew national attention because one of the victims' parents — Scott and Jessica Smith – accused the Loudoun County School district of covering up the crime. Because the sexual assault took place in a gender-fluid bathroom by a male student wearing a skirt, the parents had expressed fear of more such incidents taking place if schools start allowing boys into girls' bathrooms. The same parents have now begged the judge to spare the suspect.
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"I feel that if this boy goes directly to juvenile jail he will not receive any treatment," Jessica said. "I feel if he is placed in a long term residential he might have a fighting chance of becoming a better human being." Judge Brooks sentenced the teen to three years of probation and time in a locked treatment center instead. The boy will register as a sex offender when he is 18.
The boy's family expressed anger over the fact that he must register as a sex offender when he is 18. "This ruling was gracious in that my son was allowed the opportunity to do better and be better through residential treatment, through counseling, through everything the institution will offer," the boy's mother, who earlier refused to be identified, told Daily Mail. "However, Judge Brooks ordering that my son be registered on the sex offender list was political. This is a hard blow for anyone... it binds his hands forevermore."
"Adults who have had the chance to live and thrive today have sacrificed the life of a 15-year-old to further their political careers and for that I am ashamed people in the courtroom today consider that justice," she said. "My heart is shattered. I am shattered me, for my own family and for the judicial system."
Earlier, the boy's mother had claimed that her son, who is "deeply troubled", was wearing a skirt that particular day because he has an "androgynous style." She defined him as a "heterosexual, hormonal teen who, in the case of the rape, had consensual sex with the girl twice before." "He would wear a skirt one day and then the next day, he would wear jeans and a T-shirt, a polo, or hoodie. He was trying to find himself and that involved all kinds of styles. I believe he was doing it because it gave him attention he desperately needed and sought," she had explained.
"He's a 15-year-old boy that wanted to have sex in the bathroom, with somebody that was willing," she had told Daily Mail. "And they're twisting this just enough to make it a political hot button issue."