One month ago, the Justice Department accused former Olympic canoeist David Hearn of damaging one of America’s most recognizable landmarks.
On Friday, the government admitted the story wasn’t nearly that simple.
U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro formally asked a judge to dismiss the felony destruction-of-property case against Hearn after prosecutors concluded they had not been given the full picture by the Department of the Interior before the indictment was secured.
According to a detailed court filing, Interior officials initially represented that “nearly all” of the damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool resulted from vandalism. Only after Hearn had already been indicted did prosecutors receive hundreds of megabytes of engineering records, internal emails and inspection reports showing something very different.
Those documents indicated the pool’s new liner had begun peeling almost immediately after installation because of contractor errors, overspray, coating failures and an accelerated construction schedule intended to finish before America’s 250th Independence Day celebrations.
“It was not until after the return of the indictment,” prosecutors wrote, that Interior provided documents showing the damage “was the result of flawed installation by the contractor” and the rush to complete the project before July Fourth festivities.
The filing also faults Interior for providing “less than fulsome information” during the investigation and says the agency’s omissions undermined prosecutors’ obligation to fairly evaluate the evidence before moving forward.
Hearn, a three-time U.S. Olympian, had maintained from the beginning that he merely touched an already-loose section of liner while riding his bicycle past the memorial in June. He insisted he immediately let go when instructed by a park employee and never damaged the pool.
Body-camera footage and witness statements confirmed Hearn did pull on a loose edge of the liner before stopping when asked. But newly disclosed engineering records showed widespread peeling had already been documented days earlier by National Park Service engineers, who warned the contractor that the installation itself created a strip vulnerable to peeling.
One engineer warned in a June 11 email—more than a week before Hearn encountered the pool—that overspray along the perimeter “could lead to a 1′-2′ strip that is vulnerable to peeling.”
The renovation itself was a major federal project costing roughly $14.7 million and was completed under an accelerated timeline ahead of the America 250 celebration. The contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings, reportedly battled weather delays, sealing problems and repeated failures while trying to meet the deadline.
Following Friday’s filing, Hearn’s attorneys blasted the government’s handling of the case. “The government’s approach was ready, fire, aim,” they said in a statement.
“The administration owes Mr. Hearn an apology.” His lawyers added that “the case against Davey Hearn should never have been brought” and argued the dismissal does not erase what they called an abuse of prosecutorial power. The dismissal marks a dramatic reversal from early July, when Pirro publicly announced the indictment and pledged that anyone who damaged America’s monuments would be held accountable.
Instead, prosecutors now say the available evidence makes it “difficult to attribute the widespread damage to the Reflecting Pool to vandalism, let alone establish that fact beyond a reasonable doubt.”
The Department of the Interior has not publicly explained why key engineering documents were not produced until after the indictment had already been returned.
