Rape charge pleaded down to a suspended sentence: the Fairfax plea deals Congress found

Steve Descano's defenders say his office simply has to make hard calls with limited evidence. The House Judiciary Committee staff report released Oct. 20 shows the results of some of those calls, case by case.

Drawing on a 2025 investigative report by then-Attorney General Jason Miyares's office, the committee says Fairfax prosecutors:

• Took a charge of carnal knowledge of a 13- or 14-year-old and reduced it to a misdemeanor, "Consensual Sex w/ Child 15Y+," with a 90-day suspended sentence.
• Took a charge of "Rape by Force/Threat" and reduced it to a misdemeanor with a fully suspended sentence. Ten days later, the report says, the same man was charged with eight counts of possessing child pornography. Two weeks after that, he was arrested for DUI.
• Reduced a malicious wounding charge to unlawful wounding with time served, and dismissed firearm charges along with a charge of endangering a child by leaving a loaded gun within reach.

There's more. The report says that in a 2024 Fairfax murder committed by two men with criminal histories, Descano's office offered a deal under which they will serve five years. It says a twice-deported Guatemalan man had a felony strangulation charge dropped in exchange for a misdemeanor plea, and his victim "feared for her safety and that of her children." In a 2025 Honduran abduction-with-intent-to-defile case, a judge rejected the office's plea deal as too lenient, the report says, and the charges were then dismissed.

Descano's written office policy commits his prosecutors to take "immigration consequences into account when making charging and plea decisions." His newest argument, made in a September letter, is that the policy doesn't apply when charges are simply dropped. The committee's report calls that limitation one that appears nowhere in the policy itself.

RVN has asked Descano's office for comment. The report's claims are drawn from records the committee says it holds, which have not been made public.

Source: "Fairfax County, Virginia: The Dangerous Consequences of Sanctuary Policies," interim staff report of the House Judiciary Committee and its Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement, released Oct. 20, 2026. Read the report (PDF).

Fairfax is an independent city in Northern Virginia.

Email Steve Descano at:

Steve Descano: stephen.descano@fairfaxcounty.gov

Fairfax County is a county in Northern Virginia. Its county seat is Fairfax, an independent city.