Legal Experts Agree: The Reflecting Pool Felony Case Faces Long Odds

In the latest wrinkle in the Reflecting Pool saga, US Attorney for DC Jeanine Pirro announced in a press conference last Thursday that former Olympic canoeist David Hearn was indicted in DC Superior Court on felony destruction of property charges for allegedly damaging the Lincoln Memorial’s Reflecting Pool.

The indictment comes after President Donald Trump’s administration completed renovations totaling nearly $16 million last month, including a new “American Flag Blue” coating on the bottom of the pool. An algae bloom plagued the pool just days after its reopening, and the coating at the bottom began peeling shortly after. 

Since then, Trump has repeatedly blamed the peeling on the work of “vandals,” writing on Truth Social that someone took a “very sharp knife” and “purposefully and criminally” slashed the lining. Trump said last month that six people had been arrested for alleged vandalism, but he has yet to provide evidence. 

One of those arrested was Hearn, 67, who represented the US in the 1992, 1996, and 2000 Summer Olympic games. Hearn was arrested by US Park Police on June 19 for allegedly pulling on the lining.

The indictment charges Hearn with destruction of property of $1,000 or more, a felony charge carrying a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. 

Mary Cheh, a law professor at George Washington University and a former DC Council member, called the indictment an “overreach” by the prosecutor. Cheh acknowledged that the bar for getting a criminal indictment is low, since only the prosecution gets to present evidence. 

“There’s that old expression about grand juries: ‘A prosecutor could get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich if they presented it,’ because it’s one-sided,” Cheh said. 

Cheh said she finds it extremely unlikely that prosecutors will secure a conviction, especially considering the widespread social media videos of others touching the peeling lining of the pool. She said the indictment likely reflects Trump’s disappointment with the state of his renovations after awarding multi-million-dollar, no-bid contracts to companies to revamp the pool. 

“I can’t fathom a jury convicting this man of felony destruction of property; it just seems so beyond the pale,” Cheh said. 

Pirro claimed at Thursday’s press conference that Hearn “willfully” ripped a piece of recently installed sealant on the bottom of the Reflecting Pool. She said Hearn admitted to reaching down into the pool, and she said the National Park Service employees witnessed him “forcefully” and “violently” pulling up the liner with both hands, allegedly damaging two square feet of sealant. 

Kenneth White, a founding partner at Brown White & Osborn, said he sees the case as part of a continuing trend of the US Attorney’s willingness to try cases to please Trump. He said the office may have decided to pursue DC charges as opposed to federal charges because they have had difficulty securing federal indictments for political cases, such as the one against the infamous “sandwich guy.” 

“They’ve been having an easier time getting indictments from District grand juries and in fact they have been trying to run to them because federal grand juries there have been giving them no-bills,” White said. 

The charges against Hearn are “pretty obviously nonsense,” White says, and are an effort to cast blame for the failure of Trump’s renovations. And while a DC grand jury issued the indictment, White said it would be extremely hard to convince a DC jury of the destruction of property charges, because DC residents are so in tune with the story of the Reflecting Pool. 

“A competent defense is gonna point out that the paint is coming off on its own,” White said. 

Hearn told the Associated Press last month that he did not remove any lining of the pool, that he simply reached in to feel a piece of sealant that was peeling off but still attached to the pool, and that he stopped when a park employee told him to. He said Park Police detained him for five hours after his arrest and failed to tell him what he was being charged with. 

Norm Eisen, co-founder of the Democracy Defenders Fund who is representing Hearn, said in a statement on X Thursday that Hearn is innocent and the charges are “outrageous.” 

“This indictment reflects the administration’s effort to shift blame for their own failures,” Eisen said in the statement. 

Abbe Smith, director of the Criminal Defense and Prisoner Advocacy Clinic at Georgetown Law School, said the prosecution will have a high burden in this case of having to both prove that Hearn willingly destroyed the lining with malice and that he destroyed $1,000 worth of property. She said it will be interesting to see what evidence prosecutors present at trial, since they have yet to publicly release any video evidence in the case. 

“The government in prosecuting malicious destruction of property is going to have to prove that Mr. Hearn did more than reach in out of curiosity, did more than graze the water with his fingers, but actually meant to destroy or damage property,” Smith said. 

Smith said the optics of the case are on the defense’s side. “I think they’re gonna say this is an entirely bogus prosecution, they were looking for some kind of scapegoat to distract the American public from the millions of dollars wasted on a presidential vanity project,” Smith said.

Jenna Lee