Jennifer Wexton repeatedly dropped rape charges as Loudoun County prosecutor.
Jennifer Wexton (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images).
Josh Christenson • Nov 1, 2022 5:00 am
Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D., Va.) says she has worked tirelessly in Congress as an advocate for battered women. But as district attorney, Wexton went easy on convicted rapists.
While serving as Loudoun County prosecutor in 2001, Wexton got two rapists to plead guilty, letting them walk after just a few months in prison, according to court records obtained by Free Washington Beacon. A man was accused of raping a woman four times on the same day. The other, an illegal immigrant, kidnapped his female victim and forced her into the woods before raping her. Under Virginia law, the men were eligible to serve at least five years in prison for each rape. According to Andrew Kersey, a former prosecutor who served in Fairfax County at the same time as Wexton, these plea deals were extremely lenient.
“There have been times when I resolved a rape charge as a misdemeanor sexual battery charge over time. But it was rare,” Kersey told her. Free lantern. “It suggests a prosecutor who was reluctant to fight difficult but serious cases before a jury.”
The records underscore a central part of Wexton’s claim that she is “fighting for survivors of domestic violence” and “holding abusers accountable,” a central part of her campaign. MeSSAge. Her criminal record could also hurt her chances against Republican candidate Hung Cao, as Americans grow weary of lenient criminal justice policies. Sixty-eight percent of voters list crime as a “very important” issue heading into the 2022 midterms, according to an October Harvard CAPS-Harris poll. Wexton leads Cao by just two points, according to an October poll by OnMessage.
Wexton’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Samuel Flores was charged with four counts of rape and one count of kidnapping with intent to defile in February 2001, court records show. He forcibly kidnapped a woman from her workplace, raped her in his car, then drove her to his home and raped her three more times after locking her in a bedroom, according to a copy of his complaint criminal. “Every time she begged to be taken home, he would hit her,” causing the contusions, the complaint states. A judge held Flores without bond pending trial, noting the weight of the evidence was “good.” But Wexton allowed Flores to plead guilty to a sexual assault charge in April 2001, and he served less than two months before being released.
Months later, Walter Hernandez, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador, kidnapped a 19-year-old woman, forced her into the woods and raped her, according to his criminal complaint. A judge said the weight of evidence against Hernandez was “strong” and he was not granted bail. But in August 2001, Wexton’s charges were reduced to sexual assault. He served four months in prison before being released.
In 2004, Wexton also prosecuted a man who had 28 years suspended from a 40-year sentence after he entered a woman’s flat in the middle of the night and raped her. The man only had to serve 12 years in prison.
Wexton has long championed her advocacy for rape victims during campaigns. While running for the Virginia state senate in 2014, Wexton ran a controversial ad saying he would “fight the tea party Republicans as hard as he does the rapists.” As a state senator two years later, Wexton voted against a bill that would have made sex offender employment information public.
In 2019, Wexton endorsed Loudoun County District Attorney Buta Biberaj (D.), saying a vote for her was a vote for “a safer and fairer Loudoun.” Since her election, Biberaj has made decisions that have threatened public safety, including hiring a registered sex offender and wrongly releasing a murder suspect from prison. Free lantern reported.
Benjamin Wilson contributed to this report.
