The 15-year-old boy at the center of a sexual assault controversy in Loudoun County, Virginia, was sentenced Wednesday to spend the next three years in treatment, rather than jail, but was ordered to register for life as a sex offender in Virginia after his conviction on sexual assault charges.
The 15-year-old will be in a “locked residential program,” according to WJLA-TV.
He was convicted of two assaults at two separate schools last year, one in May, the other in October, the station reported.
Juvenile court Judge Pamela Brooks said it was the first time she’d sentenced a juvenile to be placed on a sex offender registry, according to The Daily Wire, but said the sentence was necessary.
“Over the years this court has read many psychosexual reports, and when I read yours, frankly, it scared me. It scared me for you, it scared me for society,” she said, according to The Daily Wire.
In giving a victim impact statement, parent Jessica Smith, whose daughter was assaulted in May, asked that the boy not be sent to jail, according to the U.K. Daily Mail. But she noted that the case stretched beyond the 15-year-old, who was shunted from school to school in an effort by Loudoun County schools to keep the crime against her daughter quiet.
“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,” she said, according to the Daily Mail.
The Daily Mail said it spoke to the mother of the convicted teen, who called the ruling “gracious,” in that her son was spared jail. But attacked the sex offender registration requirement.
“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,” she said.
“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.
The boy, hair worn in a ponytail, according to WJLA, apologized to the two victims in court.
But he was told by one that he had not fully apologized until he admitted what happened to a third victim.
It was the first public discussion of a third victim in the case.
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 because there’s a THIRD alleged victim https://t.co/dIc2oKnVRh
— atasteofcreole (@atasteofcreole) January 13, 2022
“I hope one day you tell them what you did to that girl,” she said, according to the Daily Wire.
Brooks said she noted that a pre-sentencing report had also cited a third female victim.
Scott Smith, a plumber whose arrest at a Loudoun school board meeting made national headlines, cited the ripple effect of the crimes throughout Loudoun County.
“This whole thing caused a huge division in our community,” he said, according to The Daily Wire. “We were accused of lying about this sexual assault for political gain. That didn’t go over well with half of Loudoun County, who didn’t patronize our business.”
“I question some of the decisions of the school system and prosecuting office for allowing the second assault to happen,” according to the Daily Wire.
Never forget that the mainstream media tried to label the rape victim’s father a domestic terrorist for demanding justice.
And never forget that the Loudoun County school district helped them. https://t.co/t6ljN5W4Eo
— Cabot Phillips (@cabot_phillips) January 12, 2022
The second victim’s mother read a statement that asked, “why me?”
That victim read a prepared statement saying, “What you have done to me will forever change my life,” according to Fox News.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.