Sex assault suspect was restrained in a chair and pushed into a shower stall with hot scalding water

A sexual assault case in Loudoun Circuit Court includes allegations of bribery, evidence tampering, police brutality, and questions about the mental wellness of the defendant.Show more

The case also has many legal tentacles. Defense attorneys and a prosecutor have made allegations of misconduct.

Richard Rawlings Piland III, 21, of Leesburg, is accused of sexually assaulting a woman at a Waterford home in the early morning hours on July 25, 2020.

Police have said that Piland later apologized to the woman, writing in a text message to her: “I am so sorry for what happened last night, and I don’t think you know how bad I feel.”

Piland faces charges of aggravated sexual battery and object sexual penetration. He is scheduled to stand trial on Oct. 3.

The Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office has alleged that attorney Thomas Kenneth Plofchan Jr. — who initially represented Richard Piland III before the Piland family dropped him — had the family wash bedding that could have been evidence of the alleged sexual assault.

That allegation is based on comments by a witness, Hunter Fulton, who told police that he heard Plofchan on the phone, directing someone in the Piland family to wash the bedding.

Fulton declined to comment last week.

On Monday, Plofchan denied the allegations and said he would never direct anyone to tamper with evidence.

He said he has filed a complaint with the Virginia State Bar against Nassir A. Aboreden, an assistant commonwealth’s attorney with Arlington County. Aboreden is serving as a special prosecutor after the Loudoun Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office was removed from the case on Dec. 7 for alleged misconduct related to discovery evidence.

Plofchan accused Aboreden of “making up crap” to prevent Plofchan’s firm from representing Piland III. He said the fact that Aborden sought a search warrant for information on the phone of attorney Deborah H. Piland, the defendant's grandmother, is troubling.

“Our phones are {like} an office. That is so outrageous, and it has nothing to do with whether Ricky Piland did something or not, I’m not in that case anymore,” Plofchan said. “But the idea that a prosecutor is utilizing the system by not properly representing to a judge in order to get illegal access to an attorney’s phone, that’s a significant story.”

Plofchan’s said his complaint also is against Paul M. Wiley, a former Arlington County assistant commonwealth’s attorney who assisted Aboreden on the case, and Parisa Dehghani-Tafti, Arlington County commonwealth’s attorney.

Plofchan alleged that Fulton has given at least five different versions of what happened after the alleged sexual assault.

Court documents say Deborah Piland spoke with Plofchan on speakerphone on the day of the alleged assault, and that the two “engaged in actions that either ordered or encouraged the washing of the sheets and the destruction of evidence.”

The sheriff’s office has sought phone records of the Piland family. But Deborah Piland filed a motion to seal the phone records, saying a “familial exemption” in Virginia law that prevents relatives from being prosecuted for concealment or destruction of evidence.

Deborah Piland wrote in her motion that Aboreden filed a complaint with the Virginia State Bar against her and Plofchan for discussions they had that included Piland III’s current attorney, Jessica E. McCollum. However, McCollum isn't the subject of a bar complaint.

Aboreden wouldn’t comment on Monday, but referred the Loudoun Times-Mirror to a Sept. 21 court filing denying the allegations.

In the filing, Aboreden called Deborah Piland’s accusations “frivolous and false.”

He wrote that the phone records revealed Piland called Plofchan six times between when deputies first arrived at the house on the day of the alleged assault and when they executed the search warrant. Aboreden wrote that one call lasted 72 minutes and overlapped with deputies searching the house.

In an interview, Deborah Piland said her grandson has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

In court and on video feeds to the courtroom, Piland III has frequently interrupted his lawyers and been disruptive.

He was sentenced to 10 days in jail for misbehavior in court during a rape shield hearing last week. The hearing was to decide whether allegations by a former boyfriend of the alleged victim that she falsely accused him of rape could be introduced at trial.

“My patience is about up,” Piland III told Judge James P. Fisher before the courtroom was cleared for the hearing. “I’m going to need more coping mechanisms. This isn’t acceptable.”

While Piland has been disruptive, Aboreden said he’s mentally fit to stand trial. He noted in a court filing that Piland has twice been deemed competent by mental health experts, although he was once deemed mentally incompetent.

Aboreden wrote that in recorded jailhouse calls, Piland’s parents allegedly encouraged him to act mentally unwell to delay going on trial.

“You could go to jail for like 20 years … that’s why you need to be found incompetent,” Piland’s mother Mindy Beach told him in one call, according to court documents. “You need to tell them you hear voices.”

In the filing, Aboreden also accused Richard Piland Jr., the defendant’s father, of bribery. Citing a recorded call, he wrote that Piland Jr. “conspired with Hunter Fulton” to ask the victim “if she could be paid off to drop the charges.”

“’If I’m going to give fifty grand to my [expletive] lawyer, I’d rather just settle this [expletive],’” Fulton said he was told by Piland Jr., according to Aboreden’s filing.

In an interview on Tuesday, Piland Jr. denied the bribery accusation.

He said his son is innocent, and he was concerned about how long his son has been jailed without being convicted.

Piland Jr. said he asked Fulton to talk to the woman to see if there was a way the case could be settled through a cash settlement that he compared to “accord and satisfaction,” a legal term for settling a claim or dispute.

“I was not trying to circumvent the law,” Piland Jr. said. “There was no bribe.”

Piland III was placed on house arrest after being charged in the sexual assault case and was staying at Deborah Piland’s home.

Court documents said he struck his father twice in the head on Feb. 12, 2021, causing a three-inch laceration.

After the alleged assault, Piland III was sent to a Pennsylvania treatment facility. But a court filing in March of this year by Piland III’s former attorney, Harvey J. Volzer, said he was discharged back to Leesburg in April 2021 and has been jailed since then.

Volzer wrote that deputies at the jail have had it in for Piland III due to an altercation he had in Purcellville with an off-duty deputy during a traffic stop in 2020.

Volzer wrote that Piland III has been denied mood stabilizers, leading to a “vicious cycle” in which he acts out and is punished.

Volzer wrote that Piland told him he was placed in a restraining chair and pushed into a shower stall, where scalding hot water was poured on him. Piland III also reported that he was subjected to prolonged solitary confinement and had eaten his own feces and drank harsh chemicals.

Piland III faces five counts of assaulting law enforcement officers at the jail. Allegations against him include throwing feces on a deputy, throwing liquid on a deputy, striking a deputy in the eye and making death threats.

In an email on Monday, Kraig Troxell, Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office spokesman, wrote that it would be “inappropriate” to comment on the brutality accusations while the assault cases against Piland III are pending.