20 years later, Anderson runs for a second stint as commonwealth’s attorney | News
attorney Robert D. Anderson said he is running for Loudoun County commonwealth’s attorney to restore competence to an office he contends is dysfunctional due to a lack of leadership from the incumbent, Democrat Buta Biberaj.
“The office, quite frankly, from my vantage point of two terms, is in chaos,” he said. “[Prosecutors] are not prepared and the people that they’re hiring are not well trained.”
Anderson, who pledged to run an apolitical office if elected, accused prosecutors of botching numerous cases since Biberaj took office in 2020. The most serious case he cited involved Peter James Lollobrigido, who is charged with beating his wife, Regina Elizabeth Redman-Lollobrigido, to death with a hammer in September 2021. He is set to stand trial on Jan. 29.
In July 2021, Lollobrigido was accused of badly beating his wife, but rather than hold him without bond, Loudoun Juvenile & Domestic Court Judge Avelina S. Jacob released Lollobrigido on bond with an ankle monitor. Anderson said prosecutors should have sought to hold Lollobrigido without bond given the serious injuries Redman-Lollobrigido suffered. (See box.)
“You just simply can’t go into court unprepared. And if you do go into court unprepared, the repercussions from that can be catastrophic,” he said. “People have been killed because of a lack of preparation.”
When Anderson left office, he oversaw 13 prosecutors for a county of roughly 200,000 people. The county now has about 432,000 residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The Commonwealth’s attorney‘s Office has about 32 prosecutors.
Anderson noted there was major population growth during his time in office and said he can adapt to overseeing a bigger office with greater responsibilities. Citing a county survey done while he was in office, he said morale was high among his staff. If elected, Anderson said he’ll hire highly-skilled, well-prepared prosecutors and he won’t micromanage them.
“They know more about the cases when they go into court than anybody else,” he said. “I’ve told them when I was in office, ‘I will have your back on anything that you do. If there’s a mistake made, we’ll deal with it and we’ll make sure that it’s not made again.'”
Anderson noted his office prosecuted Melvin Irving Shifflett, a serial killer whose crimes included killing a woman and dumping her body near Leesburg in 1978. A Loudoun Circuit Court jury convicted him in 1997.
While Anderson touted his record as commonwealth’s attorney, his successor, Republican James E. Plowman — Plowman is now a Loudoun Circuit Court judge — was highly critical of his record when he successfully ran against Anderson in the 2003 election.
Anderson said Plowman’s comments amounted to “a political statement made while he was campaigning” and denied Plowman’s accusations. Anderson said he expects his office will have a professional relationship with Plowman if he’s elected.
Anderson noted that, like Plowman, his office secured 35 to 50 indictments per month. The number has dropped to about a dozen per month under Biberaj, with charges primarily involving sex crimes and violent offenses rather than low-level drug and property crimes.
Anderson said not choosing not to prosecute non-violent crimes adversely affects the quality of life in Loudoun. He said his office will seek to more indictments for for low-level drug offenses and property crimes.
Anderson said if people charged with crimes like petty larceny aren’t indicted, they’re more likely to become repeat offenders. He said repeated cases of shoplifting have put Loudoun retailers in a bind.
“Without prosecution, these retailers are taking matters into their own hands,” Anderson said. “They’re closing off entrances and exits and confronting people on their own. That’s dangerous.”
While saying he will exercise prosecutorial discretion, Anderson said Biberaj’s criminal justice reform agenda is jeopardizing public safety.
“This is not a legislative office. This is a prosecutorial office,” he said. “And it’s not a social agency.”
Sean Kennedy, the president of Virginians for Safe Communities, leads a rally on Feb. 13 to advocate for a special election to recall Democratic Loudoun County Commonwealth’s attorney Buta Biberaj.
Like Biberaj, Anderson said he supports Virginia’s red flag law, which allows authorities to temporarily remove guns from people deemed a danger to themselves or others and allows the gun owners to go to court to get them back. Anderson said that, before the law was passed, he had a client facing a drunken driving charge who was an Afghanistan War veteran. The man fatally shot himself the night before his trial. “If this law had been in place and firearms had been removed, maybe that wouldn’t have happened,” Anderson said.
Biberaj said in a news release that said “abortion rights are on the ballot in Loudoun County” and that she would “never prosecute a woman or their doctors for reproductive health decisions.” Abortion is legal in Virginia in the first and second trimesters and in the third trimester to save the life of the mother. However, Republican Gov. Glenn A. Youngkin supports banning most abortions after 15 weeks rather than the current 26-week threshold.
Nonetheless, Anderson said Biberaj was playing politics by raising the issue because the law hasn’t changed. He said it was unfair to ask him under what circumstances he would prosecute a woman or her doctor if he were elected and the law changed.
“I am not going to prosecute a woman for having an abortion under the circumstances that we have right now,” he said. “Or any other circumstances.”
Anderson elaborated in a Facebook post.
“If any far-right Republican commonwealth’s attorney dares to even speak about prosecuting a woman (for reproductive healthcare) I will speak out loudly against them,” he said. “Buta Biberaj is a complete disaster as a prosecutor and her last resort is to lie about me and about a prosecutor’s role, because of her multiple failures protecting our community in Loudoun County.”
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