Olympic canoeist indicted in Reflecting Pool vandalism case

A three-time U.S. Olympic canoeist has been indicted on a felony charge after federal prosecutors accused him of tearing up newly installed sealant at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, a landmark that has become a flashpoint in President Trump’s push to spruce up the nation’s capital ahead of Independence Day.

David Carter Hearn, 67, of Bethesda, Maryland, was charged Thursday in D.C. Superior Court with one count of destruction of property valued at $1,000 or more, a felony that carries up to 10 years in prison if convicted. The indictment alleges that Mr. Hearn “maliciously did injure, break and destroy” the pool’s lining material.

Federal officials have said seven people, including Mr. Hearn, have been arrested in connection with alleged vandalism at the pool. Of those, Mr. Hearn is so far the only one to face a felony indictment; Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said her office is reviewing roughly a half-dozen additional cases that could result in misdemeanor charges or lesser citations rather than felonies.

Mr. Hearn was among the first taken into custody, on June 19, and has denied wrongdoing ever since, telling reporters at the time that he was merely a “curious, concerned citizen” who reached out to touch a piece of the pool’s blue coating that had come loose.

Ms. Pirro said at a Thursday news conference that National Park Service employees watched Mr. Hearn “forcefully and violently” pulling up and removing the pool’s bottom liner with both hands, damaging roughly two square feet of sealant. She said the government would prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” that the destruction was deliberate.

“This is a case with tremendous evidence,” Ms. Pirro said, adding that Mr. Hearn was “belligerent, rude and disrespectful” toward a parks employee who told him to stop.

Mr. Hearn’s attorneys, Norm Eisen and Mary Dohrmann, rejected the charge in a statement, calling the case part of an effort by the administration to shift blame for the pool’s problems onto ordinary citizens.

“These charges are outrageous and should be alarming to every American,” the attorneys 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.”

The dispute stems from a costly overhaul of the Reflecting Pool that Mr. Trump announced in April, when he vowed the historic basin would emerge “much more beautiful than the day it was built.”

According to The New York Times, the pool’s algae and leakage problems had also troubled prior administrations, and the recent renovation was carried out through no-bid contracts. The renovation ran into trouble almost immediately: Chunks of newly applied sealant were spotted floating in the water within weeks of completion, and algae returned, turning the pool green again.

Mr. Trump has blamed the setbacks on vandals, claiming without providing evidence that people had poured fertilizer into the pool to fuel the algae and had cut a lengthy gash into its surface.

The case against Mr. Hearn also lands at a difficult moment for Ms. Pirro’s office, which has struggled in recent months to make felony charges stick against Washington residents accused of confronting federal law enforcement during the administration’s law enforcement surge in the city. A federal grand jury declined three separate times to indict a woman, Sidney Reid, on a felony charge of assaulting an FBI agent during an immigration operation; prosecutors ultimately charged her with a misdemeanor, and a jury acquitted her after trial. In a separate case, a grand jury refused to indict a former Justice Department paralegal, Sean Dunn, on a felony charge after he threw a sandwich at a federal officer; he was tried on a lesser misdemeanor and also found not guilty.

Mr. Hearn is due back in court in the coming weeks.