- The teenage boy was convicted of groping two girls in two different Loudoun County schools last year
- One was a girl who he raped in the girls' bathrooms at Stone Bridge High School while he was wearing a skirt
- It led to a row over the school's transgender policies and whether kids should be able to choose which sex bathroom they use
- The boy groped another girl's breasts at a different school in the district months later
- Jessica Smith, the mother of one of his victims, asked for a non-jail sentence
- She said it was the only way to give the boy a 'fighting chance of becoming a better person'
By
JENNIFER SMITH, CHIEF REPORTER and
SHAWN COHEN FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 17:01 EST, 12 January 2022 | UPDATED: 18:29 EST, 12 January 2022
The Loudoun County teenager known as the 'boy in a skirt' who raped a classmate in the campus girls bathroom has been spared jail after his victim's merciful family begged a judge to send him to a residential treatment center and not prison so that he can become a better person.
The 15-year-old rapist - who DailyMail.com is not naming because he is a minor - was convicted of sexually assaulting two girls in two different schools in May and October last year.
One of the victims was the daughter of Scott and Jessica Smith. Scott was dragged out of a school board meeting where teachers lied about never receiving reports of sex assaults in the girls' toilets.
On Wednesday, Jessica stood up at her daughter's rapist's sentencing hearing and asked Judge Pamela Brooks not to jail him, and help him seek treatment instead.
'I feel that if this boy goes directly to juvenile jail he will not receive any treatment.
'I feel if he is placed in a long term residential he might have a fighting chance of becoming a better human being, she said.
Judge Brooks sentenced him to three years of probation and time in a locked treatment center instead. He will register as a sex offender when he is 18.
Speaking after the hearing, Jessica told DailyMail.com she was 'relieved'.
'Residential treatment is what each of us were pushing for. If he messes up, he will go to jail,' she said.
The victim's mother Jessica Smith asked the judge to give him time in a treatment program instead of jail
The row over transgender policies at Loudoun County, Virginia schools divided parents and teachers for months and came to a head when the father of a girl who was sexually assaulted in the girl's bathroom by a boy dressed in a skirt was beaten up at a school board meeting
MERCIFUL REQUEST OF VICTIM'S FAMILY TO SEND BOY TO TREATMENT PROGRAM AND NOT PRISON
The boy was spared jail after the mother of one of his victims stood up in court and begged a judge not to put him behind bars.
Jessica Smith, the mother of the girl who was raped, said she felt that if the teenager went straight to a juvenile jail that he would never be rehabilitated.
'Residential treatment is what each of us were pushing for.
'If he messes up, he will go to jail,' she told DailyMail.com after the hearing.
She added that she was 'relieved' by Judge Brooks' decision.
This is the full victim impact statement that Jessica read in court:
'Almost eight months later and here we are. What I stress to everyone is these horrific sexual assaults should never have occurred.
'I feel there are a lot of people who could have turned this around years ago and chose to ignore the problem.
'I feel that if this boy goes directly to juvenile jail, he will not receive any treatment.
'I feel if he's placed in a long term residential program, he may have a fighting chance of becoming a better human being.
'I know time and treatment go hand in hand, so my hope is [the probation officer] does his due diligence in placing this boy in a faculty that won't fail him as many adults have already done so.'
Click to expand...
Judge Pamela Brooks ruled that he must join the sex offender's register when he is 18, which the judge said was an unusual step but necessary because of the severity of his crimes.
It was alleged in court that he has a third victim who he is yet to acknowledge. He has not been charged with a third offense.
It's unclear what the maximum sentence that Judge Brooks could impose was.
During Wednesday's hearing, she said his psychological evaluation 'scared' her.
'You scare me. What I read in those reports scared me, should scare families and scare society,' she said.
The victims' families have not yet commented on the sentencing, but the boy's family are outraged by the fact that he must register as a sex offender when he is 18.
Juvenile Court judge Pamela Brooks said the boy 'scared' her
His mother, speaking to DailyMail.com afterwards, said: '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.
'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.'
'My heart is shattered. I am shattered me, for my own family and for the judicial system.'
The teenager, wearing his hair in a bun and with shackles round his feet, cried as the two girls' victim impact statements were read aloud in court.
He then apologized to both of them in court, saying: 'I sincerely apologize to you and you.
Scott Smith, the victim's father, was pictured with a bloody mouth, being dragged out of a school board meeting on June 22 - a month after the attack - after listening to school officials say no one had been sexually assaulted in the bathrooms when that's what his daughter had reported the previous month
Last year, the boy's mother told DailyMail.com how he had become the posterchild for a hot-button, political issue raging through the town.
'He's a 15-year-old boy that wanted to have sex in the bathroom, with somebody that was willing,' she declared, sitting in an empty kitchen in her townhouse in Loudoun County, Virginia.
'And they're twisting this just enough to make it a political hot button issue,' she said.
The school board, increasingly woke and determined to impose progressive transgender policies, said there was no evidence of a male student taking advantage of the policy to sexually assault an unsuspecting female student - as parents said they feared.
The victim's parents said that what happened to her was exactly that, and that he only got into the bathroom because he was wearing a skirt.
The teenagers had previously had consensual sex before the incident in May, which the girl's family said was not consensual.
That incident took place at Stone Bridge High School in May.
The boy was told to leave, but was sent to Broad Run High School, in the same school district, where he was accused of dragging a girl into the bathroom and groping her breasts.
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