A former Olympic athlete has been charged with destruction of property after he was arrested for reaching into the recently renovated Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and grabbing a flap of broken-off blue liner.
David Hearn, a two-time whitewater racing world champion who competed in the canoe slalom at three Olympic Games, was indicted by a grand jury Thursday in D.C. Superior Court on one felony charge, according to court records.
He is accused of causing $1,000 in damage to the pool. He faces up to 10 years in prison, if convicted.
Hearn has repeatedly denied vandalizing the monument, which has been plagued by algae blooms with the recently applied “American flag blue” sealant peeling from the basin, and said the damage was already done when he visited the landmark.
The felony charge announced by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro is the first following the Trump administration’s pledge to target alleged vandals that the president has accused, without evidence, of stripping the pool’s lining and pouring chemicals into the water.
Evidence shows Hearn “woefully destroyed property” in a “deliberate act” to damage the monument, Pirro said at a press conference Thursday.
Hearn “forcefully and violently” pulled the pool’s lining, she said.
But asked whether the pool’s lining was already damaged when Hearn touched it, Pirro said she was “not going to get into the evidence.”
“What I told you is what our witnesses saw and experienced,” she said. “Irrespective of whether or not we think there is some situation that preceded it, we can state and prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he caused damage.”
She said there are “about half a dozen” other cases involving alleged vandalism at the monument.
“I didn’t vandalize anything,” Hearn, 67, told The Washington Post after his arrest. “I didn’t destroy or break or peel anything. By the time I realized what was going on, I was being put in handcuffs.”
Pirro claims a parks employee ordered Hearn “to stop his behavior and stop what he was doing.”
“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,” she told reporters Thursday.
She said his behavior was described as “belligerent, rude, and disrespectful.”
The shallow pool, which the president repeatedly promotes as “bigger than skyscrapers,” was refurbished with a shade of dark blue and outfitted with “advanced nanobubbler technology” to tackle algae blooms that have long plagued the landmark.
Algae returned shortly after the renovations were complete, and the new sealant started to peel off in chunks that bubbled to the surface.
Trump initially said a refurbishing project for the 2,030-foot pool could be done quickly for $1.5 million in time for White House-backed Fourth of July celebrations. The government has now spent nearly $14.7 million, a figure that is likely to grow to cover necessary repairs.
Hearn was in the middle of a 52-mile bike ride on June 19 when he stopped to visit the pool.
“I reached in there, and I was able to grab the end of that flapping piece, the already peeling piece. It was still attached to the bottom. I didn’t remove anything,” he told The Post.
That weekend, Trump claimed an unnamed “vandal” had “done everything possible to hurt the inside surface that was just installed” in an attempt to “destroy and demean our beautiful work.”
According to National Park Service officials, the liner of the bottom of the pool was cut with a sharp knife or razor, damaging foam sealant. That June 9 incident was reported to the U.S. Park Police, according to Frank Lands, deputy director of operations for the park service.
That incident, which park officials filed in court documents as part of a lawsuit that sought to block the administration’s work, preceded Hearn’s alleged vandalism by 10 days.
“Davey Hearn is innocent. These charges are outrageous and should be alarming to every American,” Hearn’s counsel said in a statement shared with The Independent.
“This indictment reflects the administration’s effort to shift blame for their own failures,” the statement said. “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.”
