Fairfax County prosecutor Steve Descano has an extensive history of handing out cushy plea deals eligible for sealing
Virginia man Ronnie Reel was facing life in prison after admitting to police that he sexually abused an 11-year-old boy. He was charged with object sexual penetration, forcible sodomy, and aggravated sexual battery against a minor after sharing granular details about his crimes during an 18-minute recorded phone call with the victim’s mother, who thought the case was a slam dunk.
But mishaps by Fairfax County prosecutor Steve Descano’s office landed Reel a cushy deal that allowed him to plead guilty to a misdemeanor. As a result, he could be eligible to ask the court to permanently hide his case from the public under a new Virginia law.
The so-called clean slate law, passed by a Democrat-controlled legislature and signed by former governor Ralph Northam (D.) in 2021, went into effect Wednesday. It automatically seals some misdemeanors, such as marijuana and disorderly conduct charges, if the offender isn’t convicted of another crime after seven years. Ex-convicts can ask the court to seal other misdemeanors after the same time period or select felonies after 10 years. Prosecutors will still have access to the records, but they would be hidden from landlords, employers, and others conducting background checks.
The law takes effect as progressive prosecutors like Descano routinely reduce charges or file lighter ones entirely. Legal observers worry they will consider a case’s eligibility for sealing when making charging decisions and during plea negotiations.
“Where Descano has any discretion, he’s going to use that discretion in favor of sealing,” South Texas College of Law Houston professor Tom Hogan told the Washington Free Beacon. “He has already been clear that his discretionary calls are almost all in favor of non-punitive results.”
Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund policy director Sean Kennedy added that the law “keeps the public in the dark about the failings of courts and prosecutors to prevent dangerous offenders from re-victimizing the community.”
“If an offender had their charges dropped or received an inadequate sentence, the judges and the prosecutors get to erase that from the record,” he said. “If they commit some new and horrible crime, the media and the public will be none the wiser that the criminal justice system abetted that criminal’s future offenses.”
Descano has been particularly lenient with illegal immigrants, which has spurred a Department of Justice investigation. Prosecutors accused Wilmer Osmany Ramos Giron, an illegal immigrant from Guatemala, of choking his ex-wife in his car and holding a knife over her in January 2025. He’d already been deported twice and had a conviction for illegally possessing a firearm. But Descano handed Ramos Giron a plea deal reducing his charges down to one count of brandishing a machete/blade—a misdemeanor that will be eligible for sealing—and released him into the community. ICE, however, arrested him shortly thereafter.
As for Reel, sex crimes and violent felonies aren’t eligible for sealing. But Descano’s office gave the admitted child molester a plea deal that landed him a misdemeanor assault and battery conviction, which can be sealed.
The 2022 deal came after Descano, who has enjoyed support from liberal billionaire George Soros, missed a deadline to turn in evidence, including Reel’s confessions, and thus could not use it in trial. Reel was released on time served and didn’t have to register as a sex offender.
The situation particularly alarmed Hogan, since prosecutors can send sealing recommendations to courts, which would expedite the process. The “rank incompetence” Descano’s office demonstrated will “pretty much guarantee you’re going to see that level of incompetence in reviewing sealing requests,” he said. “You’re going to see mistakes made.”
Former Virginia attorney general Jason Miyares (R.) highlighted the public danger of sealing a record like Reel’s.
“If you’re a landlord, you have no idea that the person that you just rented to is somebody who’s out being a child molester,” Miyares told the Free Beacon.
Reel was arrested again in May after police found him putting a missing 17-year-old girl, with whom he had a sexual relationship, in a chokehold, according to the criminal complaint charging him with the felony of abducting a minor. But that doesn’t ensure his 2022 guilty plea won’t qualify for sealing. It would remain eligible if the case drags out past September 2029, when Reel would be eligible to apply to seal 2022 plea, or if Descano drops the charges or fails to convict him entirely.
And Reel’s case wasn’t the first time Descano’s office bungled a prolonged sexual abuse case. In 2022, a Fairfax County judge dismissed a case against Craig Allen Super, who was accused of sexually assaulting 7 girls between the ages of 11 and 18. Descano’s office had moved to dismiss the case over problems with the evidence, intending to refile the charges at a later date. The judge, however, threw out the case entirely, questioning “why it took the Commonwealth over a year-and-a-half to realize that they couldn’t go forward today,” and noting that “no less than six prosecutors” had been involved.
“I have never seen that before in a pleading in 32 years of doing this kind of work,” Judge Thomas Mann said. “Again, the court asks what has happened here.”
Descano’s office did not return a request for comment.
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