In 2019, Abdulloi Toshpulodzoda killed his landlord, Mohammad Hemmatian. Police found him covered in blood. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to the Northern Virginia Mental Health Institute.
In 2024, while he was committed, Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano’s office signed the submission allowing Toshpulodzoda to travel, with an escort, to the Tajik Embassy in Washington, D.C. There he obtained a passport.
In June 2026, a judge ordered that Toshpulodzoda not be released from custody without a further court order. Weeks later, on July 6, he left the hospital on an unescorted weekend pass, went to Dulles Airport, and boarded a one-way flight to Tajikistan by way of Istanbul. The passport that made that possible came from the trip Descano’s office approved.
Descano’s office did not file a motion asking a judge for a warrant enforceable beyond Virginia’s borders until August 5, a month after Toshpulodzoda was gone.
In an interview with FOX 5, Descano put the responsibility on the Department of Behavioral Health and state law. Once someone is committed, he said, the department controls their custody, the criminal case is over, and the prosecutor’s role is fairly limited. Asked why a passport request from a man committed for killing someone raised no red flags in his office, he said the process is written by statute. He rejected the idea that his office rubber-stamped the paperwork, and said there is no rubber-stamp process.
But his office’s signature is on that paperwork. A committed killer asking to visit a foreign embassy to obtain travel documents is exactly the kind of request a prosecutor should question. Descano’s office did not stop it.
The law gives the behavioral health department authority over privileges like weekend passes. It does not stop a prosecutor from speaking up.
In Loudoun County, Commonwealth’s Attorney Bob Anderson intervened directly with mental health officials to keep a person who had killed someone from receiving community visit privileges. When FOX 5 asked Descano whether his office ever contacts facilities to warn against unescorted visits, he again pointed to the state’s authority.
That is the difference between a prosecutor who sees the job as protecting the public and one who sees it as processing paperwork.
Descano’s office says it opposed Toshpulodzoda’s release at his annual review hearings, including in June. It also says a bench warrant was issued as soon as it learned he had escaped. Both are fair points. But opposing release in a courtroom means little when your office has already approved the trip that put a passport in his hands.
The Department of Homeland Security says an immigration judge ordered Toshpulodzoda removed from the country on June 24, and describes his departure as self-deportation. That does not change the facts. A Virginia judge had ordered him held. He walked out of state custody and left the country on his own terms, beyond the reach of Virginia courts. Sean Kennedy of Virginians for Safe Communities has criticized officials for failing to notify the public, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or the victim’s family in a timely way.
This is not a partisan complaint. Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s office said she intends to get to the bottom of how a murderer who had been denied release by a judge in June was able to get a passport and flee the country. Descano told FOX 5 he had not yet spoken with the governor about her review.
Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis has said his department receives no notification when committed individuals are granted unescorted visits. He said most people would reasonably assume that people sent to these facilities stay there.
The General Assembly should close these gaps in January:
Fairfax residents also deserve a Commonwealth’s Attorney who uses every tool he has, instead of explaining why the problem belongs to someone else. Contact Steve Descano’s office and ask why it approved the passport trip, and why it took a month to seek a warrant that could reach beyond Virginia. Then ask your delegate and state senator to support reforms that keep this from happening again.