{"id":8660,"date":"2026-08-05T04:11:40","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T04:11:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=8660"},"modified":"2026-08-05T04:11:40","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T04:11:40","slug":"reflecting-pool-defendants-lawyers-move-to-head-off-new-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=8660","title":{"rendered":"Reflecting Pool defendant\u2019s lawyers move to head off new charges"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ex-Olympian David Hearn\u2019s defense attorneys asked a judge to dismiss the case with prejudice, ensuring federal prosecutors can\u2019t reopen it.<\/strong><\/p>

Read more Nationals send outfielder James Wood to injured list with oblique strain<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n
The Justice Department last week moved to drop the felony vandalism charge against David Hearn, center. (Rod Lamkey, Jr.\/AP)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

Attorneys for the former Olympian who had been accused of vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool<\/a> are asking a judge to ensure federal prosecutors don\u2019t have a chance to reopen the case against him.<\/p>\n

In a court filing Tuesday, attorneys for David Hearn pushed back against the Justice Department\u2019s move to dismiss the charge against their client \u201cwithout prejudice,\u201d which would allow the department to prosecute him later.<\/p>\n

Lawyers Norm Eisen, Mary Dohrmann and Steve Levin wrote that recent attacks by President Donald Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum<\/a> against the decision to drop the case raise concerns that Trump could push to revive the prosecution.<\/p>\n

The department \u201chas repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to seek or reinstate criminal charges to satisfy the President, irrespective of the law or facts,\u201d the attorneys wrote. \u201cFortunately, D.C. law provides a remedy for circumstances presenting this risk of harassment and bad faith: dismissal with prejudice.\u201d<\/p>\n

The attorneys also asked for grand jury records related to the case.<\/p>\n

The filings are the latest in the ongoing legal battle.<\/p>\n

The move to dismiss the case comes weeks after a Washington Post analysis<\/a> concluded that the basin\u2019s peeling was probably caused by application errors.<\/p>\n

The contractor for the Reflecting Pool repairs, Atlantic Industrial Coatings, did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday evening.<\/p>\n

In their response to the motion to dismiss the felony charge, Hearn\u2019s attorneys said that while evidence showed from the start that installation failure was to blame for the liner damages, federal prosecutors disregarded it and pursued a case against their client anyway.<\/p>\n

They wrote <\/b>that, as \u201chighly publicized and obvious defects\u201d in the work done at the Reflecting Pool spread, Trump and his administration tried to link the defects to vandalism.<\/p>\n

That led to a rushed indictment against Hearn, they said. At a grand jury proceeding, the government\u2019s key witness on damages \u201cstated that the repairs at issue would have been necessary regardless of Mr. Hearn\u2019s alleged conduct and could not identify any additional cost caused by Mr. Hearn,\u201d according to the filing.<\/p>\n

But a later portion of the grand jury testimony \u2014 which Hearn\u2019s lawyers alleged was not initially shared with them \u2014 showed that prosecutors recalled the witness and \u201celicited\u201d from them that damage \u201cattributable to Mr. Hearn\u201d would be more than $1,000, according to the filing.<\/p>

Read more Democrat exits Senate race in South Dakota, clearing way for independent<\/a><\/p>\n

A judge must grant the motion to dismiss charges in Hearn\u2019s case, with or without prejudice. If the judge declines to grant the defense\u2019s request, Hearn\u2019s lawyers are asking for a review of grand jury materials they say could show whether jurors were provided a \u201cmisleading\u201d presentation of the case, the filing states.<\/p>\n

Hearn\u2019s attorneys said that based on the prosecution\u2019s own records, Pirro\u2019s office had known about the failing liner all along.<\/p>\n

They cited <\/b>a document dated June 30, entitled \u201cLincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool Damage Assessment\u201d that detailed damage at multiple spots throughout the pool. It described <\/b>damage in the area <\/b>where Hearn was as a \u201cpossible result of vandalism after initial peeling,\u201d not \u201cestablished vandalism,\u201d the filing says.<\/p>\n

Federal prosecutors have said<\/a> they first learned of the liner failures throughout the Reflecting Pool on July 17. But Hearn\u2019s defense team said it was given the damage assessment document as part of discovery in the case on July 10, a week earlier.<\/p>\n

Attorneys said <\/b>records also showed that on July 13, special agents with Pirro\u2019s office photographed damage throughout the Reflecting Pool. The agents were joined by a National Park Service engineer, who told them \u201che had personally cut loose liner or coating with a knife to prevent further peeling,\u201d according to the defense filing.<\/p>\n

\u201cUSAO-DC elected to pursue a politically motivated prosecution against Mr. Hearn, even as it now misleadingly contends that critical exculpatory evidence was unavailable to investigators at the time,\u201d attorneys said in the filing.<\/p>\n

In their filing seeking to drop the case, Pirro\u2019s office <\/b>argued prosecutors had initially received incomplete information from the Interior Department.<\/p>\n

But attorneys for Hearn, as well as other defendants <\/b>who had been <\/b>charged with damaging the pool, said the Justice Department\u2019s claim remains unconvincing.<\/p>\n

The department\u2019s \u201ccurrent effort to assign sole fault to DOI therefore confirms, rather than excuses, the government\u2019s bad faith,\u201d Hearn\u2019s lawyers wrote. \u201cIt relied on DOI to obtain the indictment, failed to investigate before charging, and now seeks to disclaim responsibility for information held by the very agencies on whose accusations and witnesses it relied.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hearn was expected to appear in court this week, but the hearing was vacated after the government\u2019s filing to dismiss. He has a status hearing scheduled in September.<\/p>

Read more Live updatesKey midterm primary elections kick off in 5 states<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Attorneys for David Heard, the former Olympian who had been accused of vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, are asking a judge to ensure federal prosecutors don\u2019t have a chance to resurrect charges against him. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8657,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"\nReflecting Pool defendant\u2019s lawyers move to head off new charges - Moving Insider USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=8660\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Reflecting Pool defendant\u2019s lawyers move to head off new charges - 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