Editor’s note: The final charge against former Loudoun County Public Schools Superintendent Scott Ziegler, brought by attorney general Jason Miyares, was dropped Feb. 15, 2024. WTOP apologizes for the error.
A notion to drop the remaining charge against former Loudoun County Public Schools Superintendent Scott Ziegler has been filed, according to a court filing from the Virginia Attorney General’s office obtained by WTOP.
Ziegler was charged with falsely publishing in relation to a statement he made during a livestreamed school board meeting on June 22, 2021. The charge stemmed from Ziegler’s comment, “To my knowledge we don’t have any record of assaults occurring in our bathrooms.”
The statement was related to the school system’s handling of two in-person sexual assaults by the same student in 2021. In September, a jury found Ziegler guilty of using his position to retaliate when he fired a special education teacher.
That jury also found Ziegler not guilty of punishing an employee for attending court.
The remaining charge has been dropped, the filing said, in part because of the previous conviction. Ziegler is facing a maximum punishment of a year in jail and a $2,500 fine.
Other evidence, the filing said, including a special grand jury report, “sheds light on the Commonwealth’s factual allegations in the instant indictment.”
“The Commonwealth is satisfied that justice has been done in the Defendant’s cases,” the filing said.
Last December, the Loudoun County School Board voted unanimously during a closed session to fire Ziegler, effective immediately, one day after a special grand jury report criticized the school system’s response to the bathroom assaults.
WTOP has reached out to Ziegler’s attorney Erin Harrigan for comment.
