U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s felony case against a three-time Olympian faces dismissal after her own prosecutor showed defense attorneys the alleged crime scene — where the evidence no longer exists.
David Hearn, the 67-year-old Olympian, was indicted July 2 on a single felony count of destruction of property — accused of pulling up two square feet of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool’s newly installed liner on June 19. He pleaded not guilty.
On July 16, defense attorneys gained access to the drained pool with government assistance. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Reddington accompanied them and showed them the precise spot where Hearn allegedly touched the liner.
A sworn declaration attached to a motion to dismiss filed the same day confirms what they found. The filing was first obtained by journalist Marcy Wheeler.
“This entire section of the pool liner is missing,” the declaration states.
“National Park employees observed Hearn actually forcefully and violently pulling up and removing the bottom liner with both hands,” Pirro said at her July 2 press conference announcing the indictment.
Pirro also said Hearn used his “bare hands” to damage the pool. When a reporter asked whether that suggested the liner was already damaged before Hearn arrived, Pirro replied, “Oh, he damaged it. He damaged the pool.”
Hearn has maintained he only touched a piece of liner that had already detached and let go when a park employee told him to. The motion to dismiss pointed to photographs the government included in its search warrant application, along with a photo Hearn took before he touched the pool.
“Both images show identical damage to the relevant area of the liner before Mr. Hearn ever touched it,” the filing explains.
Defense attorneys sent the government a written demand on July 8 to preserve all physical evidence in the case. However, the motion claims that the government fenced off the pool that same day and began draining it again for repairs.
“The government’s failure to preserve this evidence, in the face of an express demand no less, has destroyed Mr. Hearn’s ability to collect evidence material to his defense,” attorneys for Hearn noted in the filing. “Dismissal is the only appropriate remedy.”
The motion was filed on July 16 before Judge Todd Edelman of D.C. Superior Court.
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