Federal prosecutors can never revive a felony charge against the former Olympian David Hearn over alleged vandalism of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, a judge in Washington said Thursday, finding that President Trump had tried to influence the case.
Judge Todd E. Edelman of the Superior Court in Washington agreed with Mr. Hearn’s lawyers that the case should be dismissed with prejudice, barring prosecutors from bringing it back in the future.
U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro had already dropped the charges on July 31, admitting that damage to the pool was the result of botched renovations, rather than sabotage, as officials had originally alleged.
But Mr. Trump complained on social media about Ms. Pirro’s decision, saying she had “made a mistake” and “choked” because “the judge was really vicious.” Those and other comments prompted Mr. Hearn’s lawyers to file a motion to ensure that the charge couldn’t be revived.
“While all defendants deal with some degree of uncertainty regarding the odds of reprosecution after a case has been dismissed,” Judge Edelman wrote, “Mr. Hearn faces the unique possibility that the government will revive this case — one that it has already announced to be meritless — based on political pressure brought by the president of the United States upon his subordinate officers.”
“The court agrees with the defense that in securing the indictment against Mr. Hearn, the government shot first and asked questions later,” he added. “Nothing about the grand jury process would prevent it from giving in to the president’s pressure and doing so again.”
Mr. Hearn’s lawyers, Norm Eisen, Mary Dohrmann and Steve Levin, said in a statement that the ruling was “a victory for the rule of law and for an innocent American seeking justice.”
“This case never should have been brought in the first place,” they said. “This was a miscarriage of justice, and what happened to Davey is an outrage that should shock every American.”
A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Authorities arrested or cited a total of seven people for vandalism in June after botched renovations caused pieces of the lining to float in the pool, but only Mr. Hearn was indicted on a felony charge. Six misdemeanor charges against other defendants were also dropped.
The contractors who worked on the pool have since told the Interior Department, which runs the site, that design flaws and installation errors caused the most visible problems.
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