Judge sets aside verdict against former Loudoun schools chief -

A judge on Wednesday set aside a guilty verdict against former Loudoun County schools chief Scott Ziegler, who was convicted in September of illegally retaliating against a teacher who went public with allegations that officials failed to stop a student from inappropriately touching her.

Loudoun County Chief Circuit Court Judge Douglas L. Fleming Jr. wrote in an opinion that the jury in the misdemeanor case had been incorrectly instructed on the elements necessary for a conviction. He granted a new trial in the case.

Despite the dismissal, Fleming held that prosecutors with the office of Attorney General Jason Miyares had presented enough evidence to sustain a conviction against Ziegler, who was fired from Loudoun schools in December 2022 for his handling of a pair of sexual assaults by a student. The case focused nationwide attention on the school district.

Fleming said he was setting aside the verdict because the law requires the jury find the defendant knowingly committed the act of retaliation. Both prosecutors and the defense erred in instructing the jury that it did not have to find Ziegler acted knowingly.

Erin Harrigan, an attorney for Ziegler, did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but Victoria LaCivita, a spokeswoman for Miyares, said in a statement the office planned to retry Ziegler.

“The dismissal is based on a technicality relating to a jury instruction agreed to by the defense,” the statement said. “We look forward to once again presenting our case in court.”

Prosecutors with Miyares’s office argued during a five-day trial that Ziegler carried out a campaign of retribution against Erin Brooks, a special-education teacher, and fired her after her claims drew fresh scrutiny to the school district as it faced a firestorm of criticism for its handling of the pair of assaults in 2021.

The trial featured emotional testimony by Brooks about how she was touched dozens of times a day by the student and her pleas for help went unanswered.

At the time Brooks went public, parents were already questioning why Loudoun officials allowed a student who had committed a brutal sexual assault at Stone Bridge High School in May 2021 was allowed to enroll in Broad Run High School, where he committed a second sexual assault on a classmate in October 2021.

“They wanted the magnifying glass to go away. It was getting hot,” Special Assistant to Virginia Attorney General Brandon Wrobleski told jurors during Ziegler’s trial, referring to the scrutiny that Loudoun schools were under. “And Erin Brooks made it even hotter.”

The case also thrust Loudoun schools into the national debate over what bathrooms transgender students should use. The perpetrator was wearing a skirt when he assaulted a 15-year-old girl in a girl’s bathroom at Stone Bridge.

The perpetrator’s mother and teachers said he was not transgender, but the incident was swept up in conservative attacks on a policy enacted after the first assault that allowed transgender students to use the bathroom of their choosing.

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin highlighted the assaults in his campaign for the state’s highest office and ordered an investigation of Loudoun schools’ handling of the incidents as one of his first acts after taking office in 2022.

A special grand jury issued a scathing report that blamed Ziegler and other school officials for mishandling the sexual assaults . Ziegler was fired shortly after its release.

The special grand jury also indicted Ziegler for retaliating against Brooks and for allegedly lying publicly at a school board meeting in June 2021 about the first sexual assault. Ziegler has claimed he misunderstood what was asked.

The special grand jury also indicted Loudoun schools spokesman Wayde Byard on charges of lying about the sexual assaults during his testimony before the special grand jury.

Byard was acquitted of perjury during a trial last year, and Miyares dropped the charge against Ziegler for lying publicly in December. The dismissal of the retaliation case means Miyares has yet to win a conviction in any of the criminal cases.

An internal report commissioned by Loudoun schools that was unsealed in September found that the district failed to investigate the first sexual assault for months, did not perform a threat assessment on the perpetrator and may be doing too little to probe others that have occurred.

One of the teenage victims of the 2021 sexual assaults sued Loudoun schools for $30 million in October, claiming the school district failed to heed warning signs about the attacker. Earlier this week, a teacher who worked with Brooks sued Loudoun schools in federal court for illegally retaliating against her.

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