A federal grand jury indicted former Olympian David Hearn on Thursday on a felony charge of destruction of property in connection to his arrest last month at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro announced.
Pirro alleged Hearn used his bare hands to “forcefully and violently” pull up and remove about 2 square feet of sealant from the bottom of the Reflecting Pool on June 19. An employee from the National Park Service then instructed Hearn to “stop his behavior and stop what he was doing,” Pirro said.
“Hearn reacted by shouting at the parks employee, saying that she cared too much about the Reflecting Pool, and why did she even care since it wasn’t her pool,” Pirro said. “Mr. Hearn’s behavior was characterized by witnesses as belligerent, rude and disrespectful.”
If found guilty, Hearn faces up to 10 years in prison.
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His lawyers Norm Eisen, the cofounder of Democracy Defenders Fund, and Mary Dohrmann, a senior counsel at Washington Litigation Group, defended Hearn’s innocence in a statement Thursday.
“These charges are outrageous and should be alarming to every American,” the statement read. “This indictment reflects the administration’s effort to shift blame for their own failures. On the eve of our nation’s Independence Day, Americans should be deeply concerned by the misuse of government power against an ordinary citizen based on a concocted narrative. The justice system exists to determine facts, not to provide political cover.”
Hearn is one of at least seven people to be arrested at the Reflecting Pool for alleged destruction of property and vandalism, according to the White House. President Donald Trump had ordered a renovation of the iconic pool ahead of America’s 250th anniversary. Algae blooms began appearing shortly after the nearly $15 million work was completed and blue material surfaced at the pool, likely from the coating Trump wanted to be painted “American flag blue.”
Trump has amplified various claims of vandalism since June, including an accusation that vandals used a knife to leave a long gash in the pool; he has described the gash at various times as 250 feet, 300 feet and 350 feet long.
Hearn, who lives in Bethesda, Maryland, has maintained his innocence since his arrest on June 19. He told NBC News in June that he went to the Reflecting Pool after a bike ride “to satisfy my curiosity as a citizen of what was happening with all the algae and the peeling blue coating.” He said he only touched the paint.
“It was kind of stiff, stiff, but flexible, pretty rubbery. Didn’t feel brittle in any way,” Hearn said. “I didn’t remove, tear, rip, break or destroy any of it. The condition of the Reflecting Pool was the same after I stepped away from the water as it was before I got there.”
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