A District of Columbia grand jury on Thursday indicted David Hearn, a 67-year-old three-time U.S. Olympic canoeist, on a single felony count of destruction of property for allegedly damaging sealant on the floor of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, escalating a case the Trump administration has tied to what it calls a vandalism spree at a botched renovation.
The charge, announced by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, carries up to 10 years in prison over what prosecutors say was about $1,000 in damage to a two-square-foot piece of newly installed liner during a June 19 incident. It is the first felony to emerge from an inquiry the U.S. attorney's office says has already produced about six other misdemeanor arrests, and it lands two days before the White House's self-imposed July 4 deadline to unveil a repaired pool for the nation's 250th anniversary.
The prosecutor's case
Pirro told reporters Thursday that National Park Service employees watched Hearn "forcefully and violently" pull the bottom liner "with both hands," and that he acted belligerently when told to stop. "This is a case with tremendous evidence," she said. Asked how the prosecution squared with President Trump's pardons of more than 1,000 Jan. 6 rioters, Pirro replied, "Are you really talkin about Jan. 6?"
A troubled renovation
Trump ordered the Reflecting Pool refurbished and tinted "American flag blue" ahead of the July 4 sestercentennial. BBC put the project cost at about $14 million; the Guardian cited $14.7 million. Within days of completion the water turned green from an algae bloom, and large pieces of newly applied sealant began peeling from the pool's floor. Trump has publicly blamed vandals, alleging without releasing evidence that a 300-foot gash was cut through the liner with a box cutter and that fertilizer had been dumped into the water.
What Hearn says
Hearn, of Bethesda, Md., told the Associated Press last month that he was finishing a long bike ride when he stopped at the Reflecting Pool, reached in to touch a chunk of coating that was already partly detached and let go after a park worker told him to. "I'm a curious citizen," he said. "I reached down to see what it felt like. It was very rubbery." He told The Washington Post, "I didn't vandalize anything," adding, "I didn't destroy or break or peel anything. By the time I realized what was going on, I was being put in handcuffs." Park Police and National Guard troops detained him for about five hours before releasing him on the misdemeanor charge that Thursday's indictment supersedes.
Defense
Hearn's lawyers, Democracy Defenders Fund co-founder Norm Eisen and Washington Litigation Group senior counsel Mary Dohrmann, said in a Thursday statement that the felony charge represents "the misuse of government power against an ordinary citizen based on a concocted narrative." The attorneys called the charges "outrageous and should be alarming to every American" and said the indictment "reflects the Administration's effort to shift blame for their own failures."
Contractors are still working to keep the pool clear for Saturday's 250th anniversary celebration on the National Mall; Trump has said further repairs will likely require draining it again.