Reflecting Pool vandalism case set for dismissal against Olympian

A Washington judge on Friday said he will rule quickly on whether to dismiss a now-discredited indictment charging former U.S. Olympic canoeist David Hearn with vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool with prejudice, which would bar prosecutors from refiling charges against Hearn for the same alleged conduct in a case that has drawn intense focus from President Donald Trump.

Prosecutors, who admit there are no current grounds to sustain a criminal case against Hearn, urged Judge Todd Edelman at a hearing to dismiss the indictment in D.C. Superior Court without prejudice. 

That would let prosecutors ask a grand jury to charge Hearn again if new evidence were discovered implicating him in vandalizing the pool.

“I do think there is a public interest in allowing a grand jury at a future date” to issue an indictment if new information comes to light, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Spence told Edelman, according to reporting by MS NOW.

But Hearn’s lawyer, Steve Levin, argued, “There is nothing that can save the case that was dismissed.”

“There is no valid reason to keep it alive, to hold it over Mr. Hearn’s head for the next five years,” Levin told Edelman.

At the end of the nearly hour-long hearing, Edelman said, “I’m going to take this under advisement.”

“Won’t take long to issue a ruling,” the judge added.

Hearn, speaking to reporters after the hearing, said, “I just want to thank everyone who’s out here supporting me and everyone across the country.”

“I want to thank my lawyers for making sure that this case is represented well, and I just want to say it’s not about me,” Hearn said. “This is about defending democracy.”

During the hearing, Edelman questioned the speed with which prosecutors obtained their indictment against Hearn while knowing they had not yet received all of the information from the Department of the Interior about the installation of a new pool liner.

Hearn, 67, was indicted in early July on a charge of destruction of property for what U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said was intentionally and “violently” damaging of a two-square-foot piece of liner from the Reflecting Pool on June 19. The three-time Olympian faced a possible maximum sentence of 10 years in prison if convicted.

Hearn, after his arrest on an initial misdemeanor charge in the case in June, told The Washington Post that he had stopped at the Reflecting Pool after a long bicycle ride to look at it and reached into the water to feel a partially detached piece of blue liner.

“I didn’t vandalize anything,” Hearn told The Post. “I didn’t destroy or break or peel anything. By the time I realized what was going on, I was being put in handcuffs.”

In late July, Pirro asked Edelman to dismiss the indictment without prejudice.

Pirro said then that, despite her prior allegations against Hearn, her office had…