The father of a girl who was sexually assaulted by a boy in a skirt in her Virginia school bathroom has said he was relieved when he was pardoned by the governor for disorderly conduct – and told of his anger at being punished in the first place indicted.
Scott Smith went viral in June 2021 when he was wrestled to the ground by police and dragged out of a school board meeting over transgender issues.
His daughter had been attacked in the girls’ bathroom, and when he raised the issue, chaos ensued. He was subsequently given a ten-day suspended sentence for disorderly conduct.
On Monday, Smith told Fox News that he was not angry with the school board, but with a “radical” woman at the meeting.
Smith said he called the woman a curse and that she threatened to “ruin” him on social media. That led to the scuffle that saw him arrested and charged by a George Soros-backed prosecutor — who was later removed from the case.
Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin pardoned Smith last week for his crimes in the incident.
Scott Smith is pictured Monday speaking to Fox News about the June 2021 case
Smith was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. He said he tried to restrain himself after teachers falsely claimed they had not received reports of sexual abuse in the girls’ bathroom.
The father was left beaten and bloodied after being ejected from the Loudoun County School Board meeting in June 2021.
‘I never spoke to the school board. That whole story is actually a bit skewed,” he told Fox.
“I was sitting in my little area and a radical protester came, and I heard this shouting behind me and I turned around, and it was my wife and her, I didn’t even know my wife was there. She came in behind me.
“So I stepped in and tried to explain to this lady what was going on. She looked me dead in the face and said, ‘That’s not true, that’s not what happened. You’re lying.”
Police intervened to separate them, and Smith was handcuffed and dragged outside.
Smith blasted the local prosecutor for filing charges against him, and the Justice Department for making him a scapegoat for all the tensions at all the school boards – leading to reports of a threat from “domestic terrorists” at the rallies.
He called the prosecutor, Buta Biberaj, “one of the most evil people I have ever met.”
Buta Biberaj spoke out against Youngkin’s decision to pardon Smith: Smith called her ‘evil’ on Monday
Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin said: ‘Mr. Smith did what any father would do’ as he formally pardoned
Biberaj objected to Smith’s pardon, which was granted Friday by Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin. She said the pardon was a “political stunt” and an “unprecedented, inappropriate intervention in an active legal case.”
Biberaj also accused Youngkin of making himself “judge and jury” over himself and other officials in the case.
Smith told Fox she should be voted out of office.
“Unfortunately, with her, I have had to face the prosecution of my daughter’s sexual predator,” Smith said.
“We have to vote her out.”
The Stone Bright High School student who attacked his daughter then attacked another girl, at a different school.
The case became emblematic of the culture wars of 2021 and the extremely tense school board meetings that resulted.
Youngkin, the Republican governor, said Sunday that Smith should not have been charged.
“We righted a wrong,” Youngkin said. ‘He should never have been prosecuted here. This was a father standing up for his daughter.
“His daughter was sexually assaulted in a school bathroom, and no one did anything about it.
“This was a gross miscarriage of justice.”
Smith, pictured with his wife Jessica, faced possible prison time for protesting the sexual assault of his daughter at Stone Bright High School in Pennsylvania
Youngkin said the school “covered it up” and told Fox that parents should have the final say in their children’s education.
“Mr. Smith did what any father would do, what any parent would do: stand up for their child,” Youngkin told Fox News on Sunday.
“I spoke with Mr. Smith on Friday and I had the privilege of telling Mr. Smith that I will pardon him, and we did that on Friday.”
In the May 2021 attack, Smith’s daughter was pushed to the ground and attacked by the boy in a bathroom stall, with a teacher later testifying that she saw two pairs of feet but did not intervene.
The boy was still at large three hours after the attack, during which time principal Tim Flynn attempted to obtain a trespassing letter against Scott, who had arrived at the school.
The male student, who was wearing a skirt on the day of the attack, was allowed into the bathroom because he told staff he identified as female.
School policy allowed him to use the girls’ bathroom.
The suspect was not arrested until two months later, but on October 6, he went on to sexually assault another girl at another school, Broad Run High School. The teen was later found guilty by a juvenile court.