WASHINGTON (AP) — A former Olympic athlete faced indictment on Thursday over a criminal charge related to what President Donald Trump has termed as damage inflicted on the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. This incident is amidst a renovation effort that Trump initiated, which has encountered various challenges.
David Hearn, an ex-Olympic canoeist, was formally charged in a Washington, D.C. court with a single count of property destruction.
U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeanine Pirro, claimed that Hearn intentionally tore up the recently applied sealant on the pool, describing the act as causing over $1,000 in damage. She alleged that Hearn “forcefully and violently” removed the liner with both hands and behaved aggressively towards an employee who intervened.
“The evidence in this case is substantial,” Pirro stated, noting that approximately six additional misdemeanor arrests have been carried out by authorities.
In response, Norm Eisen, a co-founder of the Democracy Defenders Fund, and Mary Dohrmann, a senior counsel at the Washington Litigation Group, issued a statement. They represent Hearn and denounced the charges as “outrageous,” suggesting that they should cause concern for all Americans. Eisen and Dohrmann argue that the case exemplifies “the misuse of government power against an ordinary citizen based on a fabricated narrative.”
“I’m a curious citizen,” Hearn said in a telephone interview last month. “I reached down to see what it felt like. It was very rubbery.”
Hearn, 67, of Bethesda, Maryland, owned a company that made composite materials used to build watercraft.
Saying that he stopped by the pool during a 64-mile bike ride, Hearn said he was detained by National Guard troops and Park Police for five hours before being released.
Trump said last month that federal authorities made “multiple arrests” of people he accused of vandalizing the Reflecting Pool as he struggled to explain why the $16-million rehabilitation project he launched for the nation’s 250th anniversary seemingly backfired. Without providing any substantiation, he also said vandals dumped fertilizer into the pool and slashed the coating with a box cutter.
In subsequent days, National Guard members and U.S. Park Police patrolled the deck around the Reflecting Pool as Trump’s administration faced a self-imposed deadline to fix a botched renovation before the nation’s 250th anniversary celebration. Contractors and federal workers used chemicals and ozone nanobubbles to combat an algae bloom, and Trump has said that problems most likely require draining the pool again for liner repairs.
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Kinnard reported from Columbia, S.C.