LEESBURG, Va. — A fired Loudoun County superintendent must wait even longer to learn if he’ll go behind bars.
Editor's Note: The video above aired on Sept. 29, 2023.
On Thursday, a Loudoun County judge says he’ll review the argument to set aside the guilty verdict against Dr. Scott Ziegler.
Prosecutors argued he fired a teacher after she spoke out against the school district. The charge Ziegler was found guilty of has never been tried in the commonwealth. This is new territory.
The defense says the General Assembly didn’t specify a punishment for this Class 1 misdemeanor, arguing the verdict didn’t meet the elements of the charge because prosecutors failed to prove Ziegler knew his actions violated the law.
The judge is now reviewing the argument.
A jury found Ziegler guilty of retaliating against special education teacher Erin Brooks for talking to an activist in 2022 about what she felt was the administration’s failure to handle a 10-year-old non-verbal student with autism inappropriately touching her.
Prosecutors from the attorney’s general’s office argued the district declined to renew her contract because she brought more negative attention at a time when Loudoun County Public Schools was under fire for how it handled two sexual assaults at two different schools by the same student.
The defense says Brooks failed to follow the plan to mitigate the situation.
Ziegler was also accused of penalizing Brooks for testifying to a special grand jury empaneled by Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares to investigate LCPS. But the jury acquitted him of that charge.
Ziegler was fired in December 2022 after the special grand jury released its report criticizing LCPS.
Just last month, the AG’s office dropped the remaining charge of false publication saying it’s already satisfied that justice has been done.
The defense maintains the case against Ziegler was politically motivated.
The judge now will set a later date to announce his decision to keep or throw out the verdict.