A judge Thursday said federal prosecutors cannot refile charges against a former Olympian who had been accused of damaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool only to have the case abruptly dropped weeks later.
A judge in the nation’s capital agreed on Thursday to permanently dismiss a criminal case charging a former Olympian with vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, a move that could prevent federal prosecutors from reviving the case under political pressure from President Donald Trump.
D.C. Superior Court Judge Todd Edelman ordered the dismissal of David Hearn’s case with “prejudice,” which would block U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office from refiling the felony charge against him. The judge ruled nearly a month after hearing attorneys’ arguments.
Hearn’s lawyers say Trump administration officials have continued to falsely accuse the Maryland resident of vandalizing the reflecting pool despite Pirro’s decision to drop the case on July 31. Trump responded by saying Pirro “choked” and “folded like an umbrella.”
In a court filing in July, Pirro said new evidence produced by the Interior Department showed Hearn wasn’t responsible for damage to the pool’s lining. Pirro’s office attributed the damage instead to a botched installation by a contractor as well as a rush to complete the project in time for this summer’s America 250 celebration in Washington. Pirro’s admission was seen as an embarrassing setback for the White House. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has backed Trump’s claims that vandals damaged the pool.
Hearn has said he was on a bike ride on June 19 when he reached in to examine the pool’s newly peeled coating and briefly touched a chunk attached to the side of the pool. He said he obeyed a park worker’s command to let go of it. He was charged with one count of property destruction, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years. His lawyers questioned whether prosecutors properly presented the grand jury with adequate evidence to support the charge and the amount of damage alleged by the government.
Hearn, 67, of Bethesda, Maryland, competed in three Summer Olympics in canoe slalom, earning a best finish of ninth at the 1996 Atlanta Games.
Hearn’s attorneys said the ruling is “a victory for the rule of law and for an innocent American seeking justice” and allows Hearn to “move forward with his life as he deserves.” “This administration chose to pursue an unjust prosecution against Mr. Hearn. It should not get repeated chances to wield the power of criminal prosecution against someone who should never have been prosecuted,” the lawyers said in a statement.
In August, federal prosecutors asked Superior Court Judge Todd Edelman to dismiss the criminal indictment against Hearn, who had been charged with felony destruction of government property. He was accused of causing more than $1,000 in damage to the sealant that was installed last summer at the bottom of the Reflecting Pool.
Hearn pleaded not guilty to the charges, saying he had stopped by the pool in July while on a 64-mile bike ride through the nation’s capital. He said he was arrested after he reached down into the pool and was detained for five hours.
The project to renovate the pool has been championed by President Trump, who in April launched an effort to address the pool’s “terrible” condition, part of a slate of spring cleaning projects in Washington, D.C., ahead of the nation’s 250th birthday. He had the pool’s stone flooring coated with a sealant he called the “latest and greatest filament” and an “industrial-grade” variation of swimming pool liner. He told reporters he personally chose the sealant’s color: “American Flag Blue.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in D.C. admitted in court filings that Hearn had not, in fact, damaged the pool, although U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro alleged in a July press conference that he had. Prosecutors said new information had come to light revealing the rips and tears in the pool lining were caused by a contractor’s “botched installation.”
Edelman dismissed the case shortly after the government’s motion, but had not ruled on whether the case would be dismissed with prejudice, meaning the case could not be brought again, or without prejudice, meaning the charges could be revived. Hearn’s lawyers said the charges should be dismissed with prejudice, while Pirro’s office argued for a dismissal without prejudice.
Hearn’s case, Edelman wrote, “presents a markedly different scenario” than the typical dismissal of criminal cases in federal court, because “within a month, the government recognized that its prosecution lacked merit.” “It reached this conclusion not because it has misidentified Mr. Hearn as the perpetrator of the alleged act, but because no crime had occurred,” Edelman wrote, adding that the government’s interest in keeping the possibility of charging Hearn again would result in a “meritless, politically motivated prosecution.”
After Pirro’s office moved to drop the case, Mr. Trump publicly rebuked his hand-picked D.C. prosecutor, saying that she had “choked” and “made a mistake” with the decision. “I was disappointed with Jeanine Pirro,” Mr. Trump told reporters in August. The president has frequently insisted the peeling was caused by vandals, not by problems with the more than $10 million project. “Who would do such a thing?” the president wrote in a Truth Social post on June 20 that also mentioned several arrests.
Many of the other defendants accused of vandalizing the Reflecting Pool also had the charges against them dropped. Pirro later made a bid to prove to Mr. Trump that the damage to the Reflecting Pool was caused by the shoddy construction job, bringing a box full of evidence to the White House that sources said contained all of the evidence collected from the Interior Department exculpating Hearn and several others from criminal vandalism.
The New York Times in September reported that the contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings, admitted in government documents that the workers had not used enough primer and that the pool liner that was applied contained two chemicals that were incompatible.
Days after Pirro’s office moved to dismiss the case, CBS News reported that White House officials asked the Justice Department to weigh whether it would be possible to bring a new criminal case against Hearn.
In a statement, Norm Eisen, an attorney for Hearn, said that Edelman’s ruling is “a victory for the rule of law and for an innocent American seeking justice.” “This case never should have been brought in the first place,” Eisen said, adding that the prosecution was a “miscarriage of justice” and an “outrage that should shock every American.” A spokesperson for Pirro’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Edelman’s decision.
