Father arrested at school board event says school tried to cover up daughter’s bathroom assault

Scott Smith went viral after he was filmed being dragged from a school board meeting. Now he has revealed the horrific reason behind his outburst.

A US parent who was arrested during a June school board meeting in Loudoun County, Virginia, is accusing the district of trying to cover up an alleged bathroom sexual assault by a gender-fluid individual against his daughter in order to further its transgender rights agenda.

Scott Smith was found guilty of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest in August after he was filmed being dragged by police from the Loudoun County School Board meeting on June 22.

He was sentenced to 10 days in jail, all suspended, contingent on a year of good behaviour, Loudoun Now reported at the time.

Mr Smith’s image went viral among some as an example of parents running amok, and the National School Boards Association cited his arrest in a letter last week requesting the Department of Justice to provide federal law enforcement to respond to an increase in violence against school officials across the country.

Attorney General Merrick Garland later pledged to have the Department of Justice and the FBI investigate harassment of school board members.

Now, Mr Smith says there’s much more to his story, telling The Daily Wire that his behaviour at the June 22 meeting stemmed from an incident weeks earlier at his ninth-grade daughter’s school, Stone Bridge High School in Ashburn, in which he said a boy wearing a skirt entered the girls’ bathroom and assaulted his daughter on May 28.

“We can confirm a May 28, 2021 case that involved a thorough two-month-long investigation that was conducted to determine the facts of the case prior to arrest,” the sheriff’s office told Fox News. “This case is still pending court proceedings.

“The Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office is not able to provide any documents that pertain to a pending case.”

The sheriff’s office confirmed that the case involved alleged sexual assault.

Scott Smith was found guilty of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.

All juvenile records are sealed, but Mr Smith’s lawyer Elizabeth Lancaster told The Daily Wire the boy was subsequently charged with four counts of sexual assault.

In response to a public records request by The Daily Wire, the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that a May 28 report with those charges at “Stone Bridge High School does exist”.

The suspect was arrested two months later following an investigation by the sheriff’s office.

Minutes before Mr Smith’s arrest at the June 22 board meeting, Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) Superintendent Scott Ziegler declared “the predator transgender student or person simply does not exist”, and that to his knowledge, “we don’t have any record of assaults occurring in our restrooms”, The Daily Wire reported.

Mr Smith told the outlet that he flew into a rage at the meeting after Mr Ziegler’s comments, and after a local activist said she did not believe his daughter’s story.

“If someone would have sat and listened for 30 seconds to what Scott had to say, they would have been mortified and heartbroken,” Ms Lancaster, Mr Smith’s lawyer, told The Daily Wire.

On August 11, nearly two months after Mr Smith’s arrest, the school board voted to approve its transgender rights policy, which requires teachers to call students by the pronouns they identify with and requires bathroom renovations in order to make them more private.

Mr Smith said he received a letter before the vote informing him he was banned from the school board building.

US Attorney General Merrick Garland. Picture: Mandel Ngan/AFP

Then on October 6, the sheriff’s office said a 15-year-old boy was charged with sexual battery and abduction of a fellow student at Broad Run High School in Ashburn. In an October 7 press release, the sheriff’s office said the suspect forced a female victim into an empty classroom where he held her against her will and inappropriately touched her.

The outlet, citing a government official, reported that the boy accused in the Broad Run case had the same name as the student who allegedly assaulted Mr Smith’s daughter.

Ms Lancaster also told the outlet the suspect in the October 6 incident was the same boy who allegedly attacked Mr Smith’s daughter.

Ms Lancaster did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment.

Investigative reporter Luke Rosiak wrote in a tweet thread that the school district had “quietly” transferred the boy to Broad Run High School after the alleged May 28 incident at Stone Bridge. It is unclear whether any disciplinary action was taken against him.

In June, LCPS lectured the public for worrying about a "red herring," saying the district had 0 bathroom assaults on record. It quietly transferred the boy charged in the May 28 assault to a new school.

October 6, he was arrested for a new sex assault inside a classroom there.

— Luke Rosiak (@lukerosiak) October 11, 2021

The school district did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment.

Mr Smith’s wife, Jess, said prosecutors told her the suspect’s court date had been postponed from this Thursday to October 25 in order to handle both cases together.

“It has been so hard to keep my mouth shut and wait this out. It has been the most powerless thing I’ve ever been through,” Mr Smith told The Daily Wire. “I don’t care if he’s homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, transsexual. He’s a sexual predator.”

The parents did not immediately respond to Fox News’ requests for comment.

Fox News’ Emma Colton contributed to this report

This article originally appeared on Fox News and was reproduced with permission