Several people have been arrested and cited after President Donald Trump blamed, without evidence, vandals for destroying the pool.
David Hearn in action during the U.S. Whitewater Kayak/Canoe Olympic Trials on the Ocoee River in the Cherokee National Forrest in Ducktown, Tenn., in 2000.
By Ryan J. Reilly, Marco Gacina and Minyvonne Burke
WASHINGTON — U.S. Olympic canoeist David “Davey” Hearn was indicted Thursday on a single count of destruction of property after he was accused of causing more than $1,000 worth of damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
Hearn was indicted in D.C. Superior Court on the felony charge.
Jeanine Pirro, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said National Park Service employees saw Hearn “forcefully and violently pulling up and removing the bottom liner” of the pool with both hands during a June 19 incident. She alleged that he damaged about two square feet of the sealant from the bottom of the pool.
“A parks employee actually told Hearn to stop, to stop his behavior and stop what he was doing,” Pirro said at a Thursday news conference. “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 employees described Hearn’s alleged behavior as “belligerent, rude, and disrespectful” and accused him of deliberately damaging the pool.
Hearn’s legal team, Norm Eisen, co-founder and executive chair of Democracy Defenders Fund, and Mary Dohrmann, Senior Counsel at Washington Litigation Group, issued the following statement to NBC News.
“Davey Hearn is innocent. These charges are outrageous and should be alarming to every American. This indictment reflects the administration’s effort to shift blame for their own failures,” the statement read. “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.”
