Former Olympian David Hearn stands along with his legal professional Norman Eisen as he speaks to reporters and protestors gathered after his arraignment at Moultrie Courthouse on July 09, 2026 in Washington, DC.
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Finn Gomez/Getty Photos North America
Federal prosecutors have moved to dismiss the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool vandalism case towards former Olympian David Hearn, saying as an alternative that injury to the pool was “the results of botched set up and never vandalism.”
Earlier this month, Hearn, 67, pleaded not responsible to a single depend of destruction of property inflicting greater than $1,000 in injury to the pool. Hearn has repeatedly stated that he merely touched the water within the pool out of curiosity final month. However the authorities alleged he had ripped a bit of sealant on the backside of the reflecting pool after it had undergone a $14 million renovation.
“This was a deliberate act to wreck the reflecting pool on the Nationwide Mall that members of the Nationwide Park Service even have labored laborious to revive and have witnessed,” U.S. Lawyer for D.C. Jeanine Pirro beforehand stated of Hearn’s actions.
In a submitting late Friday, the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace for D.C. switched course, saying it had relied on preliminary reviews supplied by the Division of the Inside (DOI) and U.S. Park Police (USPP).
Friday’s submitting reads: “It was not till after the return of the indictment, that the DOI supplied extra paperwork … indicating that injury to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in June 2026 was the results of flawed set up by the contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings (“AIC”) and the push to finish the mission previous to occasions related to the America 250 celebration within the weeks surrounding Independence Day 2026.”
NPR has reached out to the Division of the Inside for remark.
