The 15-year old involved in two sexual assaults at two different high schools will be sentenced to a “residential program” where he will serve out the remainder of his high school years and be placed on the sex offender registry upon his 18th birthday, the Independent reported.
“You scare me,” Loudoun Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court Judge Pamela Brooks said of the boy’s psychological evaluation during sentencing. “What I read in those reports scared me, and should scare families and scare society.”
The Daily Mail reported the boy, who sexually assaulted a girl in a bathroom in May and who forced another into a classroom and touched her inappropriately, was sentenced Wednesday to a high school “locked residential program” after the victim’s family pleaded with judge.
One of the victim’s mothers, Jessica Smith, pleaded with Judge Brooks during sentencing to let the boy seek reform through a “residential program,” instead of juvenile jail where she lamented he would not be given treatment.
“I feel that if this boy goes directly to juvenile jail he will not receive any treatment,” Smith said. “I feel if he is placed in a long-term residential he might have a fighting chance of becoming a better human being.”
She added after the hearing, “residential treatment is what each of us were pushing for. If he messes up, he will go to jail.”
The boy’s mother told the Mail, after the hearing, “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.”
