Lawyers for the former Olympian David Hearn filed a motion on Thursday night seeking to bar federal prosecutors from reviving a felony charge that he vandalized the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, saying they needed to head off possible “prosecutorial harassment” prompted by President Trump.
Judge Todd Edelman of the District of Columbia Superior Court dismissed the case against Mr. Hearn this month after Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for Washington, said the government would drop the case because damage to the pool had been caused by shoddy installation, not by vandalism. Judge Edelman also canceled a jury trial scheduled for late September. But he set a hearing for early September on whether to prevent prosecutors from bringing the charges back.
In their motion on Thursday, Mr. Hearn’s lawyers pointed to comments by Mr. Trump disagreeing with Ms. Pirro’s decision and to a report in The Wall Street Journal that the White House was trying to explore ways to bring new charges over the pool.
“Executive Branch officials have continued to advance the narrative — contrary to the evidence and the filings of record in this case — that Mr. Hearn vandalized the Reflecting Pool,” the lawyers wrote. “Those public statements, together with reports that the Department of Justice is considering bringing new charges against Mr. Hearn, confirm that the risk of continued prosecutorial harassment is not speculative.”
“We will litigate this in court,” Tim Lauer, a spokesman for Ms. Pirro’s office, said.
The Trump administration’s efforts to rush through repairs to the pool, a national landmark, have backfired. A hastily installed blue lining began to peel and new water-purification systems failed to prevent a huge bloom of algae that turned the pool green.
Ms. Pirro told the court that prosecutors had determined that contractors hired by the Trump administration mismanaged the Reflecting Pool’s $14.7 million renovation and left behind “widespread damage.”
Mr. Trump has said he thought Ms. Pirro “made a mistake” and “choked because the judge was really vicious.” The president did acknowledge this weekend that “some contractor error” also played a part.
The defense team for Mr. Hearn, a canoeist who represented the United States at the 1992, 1996, and 2000 Summer Olympics, said those comments showed the administration might continue to try to press the case unless the judge blocks it.
“The record in this case demonstrates a substantial and specific risk that, if the indictment is dismissed without prejudice, Mr. Hearn will face renewed charges, however meritless, driven by political pressure rather than the evidence,” they wrote.
Six other people also were arrested or cited for vandalism in June after the pool drew widespread ridicule, but only Mr. Hearn was indicted on a charge of a felony, to which he pleaded not guilty last month. The other misdemeanor charges were also dropped.
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