Arlington County Republican Committee accused Arlington Commonwealth’s Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti of leniency when it was revealed the suspect in a Pentagon City double stabbing that occurred last month, 23-year-old Leonardo Reyes, previously reached a plea deal with her office in 2021 for armed robbery.
Dehghani-Tafti is one of the prosecutors who received significant political backing from an organization tied to the controversial Hungarian-American financier George Soros, and more recently, the prosecutor argued there was “no basis” to disrupt an anti-Israel encampment that formed near the Virginia home of Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Reyes was reportedly on probation on December 15, when he allegedly stabbed a toddler and an adult woman in Arlington. The toddler was treated and released after the attack, but the adult woman, identified by police as Iman Gaye, died on December 30, 2024, as a result of the injuries police say she sustained from Reyes.
After Arlington Now reported the criticism of Dehghani-Tafti by the Arlington GOP following the arrest of Reyes, the Republican Party Virginia wrote in a post to the social media platform X, “Every Virginian deserves a prosecutor who will enforce the law and punish violent criminals. Parisa Dehghani-Tafti’s pro-criminal reign of terror has continued for far too long.”