Pulaski County Administrator Jonathan Sweet has been acquitted of misdemeanor assault and battery of Virginia Tech’s student body president in a case connected to a Hokie football tailgate that featured state delegates and other Republican officials.
Wiping away tears Tuesday outside the Montgomery County General District Courthouse, Sweet, 46, who also was appointed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin to the Radford University Board of Visitors, said the charge “was unfounded to begin with and the evidence spoke for itself.”
Kiera Schneiderman brought the charge six weeks after the alleged incident on Sept. 21 following Virginia Tech’s loss to Rutgers.
After cheering on the Hokies from the president’s box at Lane Stadium, she said, she was invited by Elizabeth Hooper, Virginia Tech’s associate vice president of governmental and community affairs, to stop by the tailgate she had organized for visiting public officials in Lot 2 outside the stadium.
During her 25 or so minutes at the tailgate, Schneiderman claimed that an intoxicated Sweet, who was slurring his words, grabbed her four different times around the waist and neck.
“I feel like ‘hug’ was too generous a word,” she told Montgomery County Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Nic Lauer. “I could not push him off. He was a stranger, he was significantly older than me and I don’t expect people I don’t know to be hugging me.”
For his part, Sweet testified that none of what she alleged had taken place in the tight confines of a tailgate attended by a dozen or so people. “I did not hug her at all,” Sweet testified. “I don’t even recall shaking her hand upon meeting her.”
He said he’d had one or two beers during the game and was in complete control of himself at the tailgate. “We were in a parking lot with cameras and a lot of dignitaries,” he testified. “I was very professional.”
Both Hooper and Del. Eric Phillips, R-Henry County, testified that they did not see Sweet touch Schneiderman except during a group photo.
“Generally at these things, people greet each other by hugging each other,” added Phillips. “Nothing weird about that.”
The photo showed evidence of a fifth alleged assault, Schneiderman claimed, when Sweet put his arm around her.
On cross-examination, defense attorneys Jimmy Turk and Katie Turk focused on the photo in challenging Schneiderman’s account.
According to testimony, after allegedly being assaulted four times at the tailgate, Schneiderman gave her phone to Hooper and asked her to take her photo with some of the attendees, including Sweet, Phillips and John Hess, district director for U.S. Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem.
Sweet’s arm can’t be seen, though Phillips’ arm rests on her shoulder. Schneiderman is smiling.
“No person that had been assaulted … would request to take a picture smiling in the middle of all the individuals she had been around,” argued Katie Turk.
Schneiderman left the tailgate around 9 p.m. and called Virginia Tech police around midnight after looking up Sweet’s identity. She told the officer who came to her room that she hadn’t been injured and did not want to press charges, nor did she want the officer to pursue an investigation, but she wanted the incident documented.
By Oct. 9, though, she had changed her mind and called the officer again. “He is the most powerful man in Pulaski County, and I am an undergraduate student,” she told the officer, according to court documents. She was concerned Sweet might assault other college students, she told the officer. A month later, on Nov. 8, Sweet was charged with misdemeanor assault and battery.
The defense ascribed other motives to Schneiderman.
Checking her statements to the officer, Jimmy Turk asked, “Did you say that all the witnesses are politicians and you’re not sure they’ll help at all?”
“Yes, sir,” Schneiderman replied.
“Did you say they are all male Republican delegates from Southwest Virginia and a sexual assault would not be their top priority?”
“Yes, I did,” said Schneiderman.
“This is purely politically motivated,” Katie Turk argued.
In dismissing the complaint, Judge Gordon Saunders said, “I don’t look at this being any kind of politically motivated witch hunt.”
However, Saunders ruled that there was a lack of evidence proving assault and, returning to the group photo, added, “The photograph does not show that [assault].”
Schneiderman declined to comment after the hearing.
A tearful Sweet said he lamented the toll that the incident has taken on his wife of 23 years and three children ages 17, 16 and 7. “My reputation is very important to me … and there’s been a lot of collateral stress.”
