The DC US Attorney’s Office led by Jeanine Pirro moved to drop vandalism charges against the canoeist David Hearn Friday. It also dropped cases against three additional people it had claimed damaged the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, according to court filings from Pirro.
The documents, filed in DC Superior Court, show that cases against Justin Carreno, Sophie Dennison-Gibby, and Cameron Thiers were labeled closed after Pirro filed a notice of “nolle prosequi”—or a formal notice that prosecutors don’t intend to pursue charges—on Friday.
Pirro said in a court filing in Hearn’s case Friday (read it here) that the contractors hired to carry out President Trump’s renovations on the Reflecting Pool had botched the job and the damage was not the work of vandals.
Carreno, Dennison-Gibby, and Thiers were all detained between 1 and 3 PM on June 20, according to court documents, and were all accused of removing pieces of paint from the Reflecting Pool. Court documents say officers witnessed Carreno and Thiers place their hands into the water and pull out pieces of blue lining from the bottom of the pool. Officers also claimed that Dennison-Gibby had a piece of the pool’s lining in her purse after they detained her.
The dropped charges come after the Trump administration completed renovations totaling nearly $16 million in June, 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 to peel 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.
Defense lawyer Jamison Koehler tells Washingtonian that his client Dennison-Gibby picked up pieces of the lining that were floating in the pool and that she did not pull on the lining. He said his client was just a concerned and curious citizen, and she did not commit any criminal offense. “My client was horrified, petrified,” Koehler says. “This has been a miserable experience for her.”
Thiers “had done nothing wrong and now he’s been vindicated,” said his lawyer, G. Allen Dale.
Mark Zaid, one of the attorneys representing Carreno, wrote in a post on X that Carreno is “entitled to a public apology” given the false accusations against him and his wrongful detainment. “We’re very happy criminal charges were dropped against our client Justin Carreno, who we were representing for purposes of his federal contracting employment,” Zaid wrote. “He lost two jobs due to this frivolous arrest.”
