Attorneys for the former Olympian who had been accused of damaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool have called for inspectors general to investigate alleged misconduct by the Interior and Justice departments in the handling of the since-dismissed case.
In a letter Tuesday to the watchdog offices of the two departments, David Hearn’s attorneys said a joint investigation is needed after the departments allegedly rushed to complete a renovation of the pool despite warnings of installation failures, charged Hearn based on incomplete and false information, and publicly shamed him despite having information showing another cause for the damage.
The letter — signed by six attorneys representing Hearn, including Michael Bromwich, a former Justice Department inspector general — asked the government to gather facts as to what happened in the case, which they described as a “nightmare” for their client.
“Anything less than a full and fair review would be a betrayal of your mission and perpetuate the outrageous mistreatment of Mr. Hearn,” the attorneys wrote.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the Justice Department said, “The Office of the Inspector General operates independently and makes its own decisions about what to review.”
An Interior Department spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment about the letter from Hearn’s attorneys. But in a statement, they said Hearn had “admitted to officers that he was tampering with the Reflecting Pool.”
Hearn’s attorneys denied the claim, saying “the government is continuing the kind of misconduct that triggered this complaint.”
The letter comes days after a judge agreed to a request from Hearn’s defense to dismiss his case with prejudice, meaning the charge can’t be brought back, a rare move the judge said aimed to protect Hearn from a “meritless, politically driven prosecution in the future.”
The Justice Department has said prosecutors acted “in good faith” in bringing the charge against Hearn based on the information they had at the time from the Interior Department.
In a court filing to dismiss the case, prosecutors wrote that the Interior Department later provided additional evidence that suggested the damage to the Reflecting Pool was from a “botched” installation.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum maintained that “vandals” were responsible for damage to the pool immediately after the charges were dismissed. He also wrote on social media that the department provided “expert and eyewitness testimony” to the U.S. attorney’s office, as well as “every piece of evidence they asked for in the requested time line detailing each area of damage at the pool.”
President Donald Trump announced plans earlier this year to renovate the Reflecting Pool as part of work ahead of the country’s 250th anniversary celebrations. The Interior Department awarded a no-bid contract to Atlantic Industrial Coatings for the project. The contractor did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
By June, problems at the site arose, as algae bloomed and the pool’s new “American flag blue” coating peeled.
On June 19, Hearn, 67, went on a bike ride and stopped at the Reflecting Pool. He said he reached into the basin to feel the water temperature and touched a partially detached piece of coating.
He said he released the coating when a National Park Service employee asked him to and “left the pool in the same condition as he found it,” according to the new letter from his attorneys.
In the letter sent Tuesday, his attorneys said the government’s charging documents show that National Guard members stopped and detained Hearn before bringing him to U.S. Park Police. They said body-camera footage showed a Guard member telling Hearn “he was not free to leave when he asked.”
His attorneys claim Hearn was not read his rights, nor allowed a telephone call or provided any details of the charges against him, until he was released later that night with two misdemeanor citations.
Less than two weeks later, on July 2, a grand jury indicted Hearn on a charge of felony destruction of property valued at $1,000 or more. He pleaded not guilty.
On July 31, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro filed to dismiss the charge citing, in part, an email from a National Park Service engineer that suggested the pool was peeling days before Hearn visited.
In the Tuesday letter seeking “coordinated, independent investigations,” Hearn’s attorneys — who also include Steven Levin, Jason Weinstein, Mary Dohrmann, Norm Eisen and Joshua Kolb — said they want Interior’s inspector general to investigate the department’s no-bid selection process of the contractor and why Burgum and other officials accused Hearn of vandalism if there had been documented concerns about the installation, among other alleged failures.
Hearn’s attorneys allege the contractor for the Reflecting Pool renovations was “unqualified and inexperienced.” In a memo justifying the contract, the Interior Department found Atlantic Industrial Coatings, the primary contractor, had the required technical expertise and could finish the work within the allotted time.
As the renovation progressed, the National Park Service documented blistering, Hearn’s attorneys said. An engineer working for the agency found areas “vulnerable to peeling” in the days immediately after the pool was refilled with water, the attorneys said, but the pool was still reopened.
“NPS was warned of the risks, and it nevertheless proceeded,” Hearn’s attorneys said. “Together these decisions reflect a failure that was not merely foreseeable but expressly foreseen — and completely ignored.”
Hearn’s attorneys said there was “a mountain of evidence” that the pool was failing from faulty installation, yet the U.S. attorney’s office “misled” the court about when it learned of such defects “in order to cover up its own misconduct and incompetence.”
For example, they said, Pirro’s office had received a damage assessment from the National Park Service showing the liner had been failing before it presented its case to a grand jury.
The U.S. attorney’s office said in court filings that it was unaware of or in possession of “any of the extensive documentation of installation issues” collected by the Interior Department at the time the indictment was returned.
In addition to examining when Pirro’s office knew of problems with the lining, Hearn’s attorneys want the Justice Department watchdog to investigate whether the U.S. attorney violated policy through statements she made at a news conference announcing his indictment and allegations that she improperly pressed a defense expert to discuss his work during a July visit to the Reflecting Pool.
The government’s motion to dismiss the case mentions Pirro visiting the site at the same time as the defense expert but does not mention the interaction.
The attorneys also said in the letter that the government’s key witness, a National Park Service employee, falsely claimed that they took a photo of the liner just before Hearn touched it. But they say evidence shows the photo was taken by someone else about two hours before Hearn was at the pool.
The U.S. attorney’s office “blindly parroted” the witness’s account without “taking the minimal investigative steps necessary to determine who took this photo,” Hearn’s attorneys said in the letter.
His attorneys further allege prosecutors did not produce crucial evidence, including the metadata for the photos that led to the charge, the identities of Hearn’s accusers or the contents of his phone.
Attorneys said the administration did, however, distribute surveillance footage to Fox News and on officials’ social media accounts that it claimed showed vandalism at the pool.
The effort was intended to “reinforce” a narrative, the attorneys said. But prosecutors have since dismissed vandalism cases against Hearn and three others.
“Dropping the case is not justice or accountability,” Bromwich, one of Hearn’s attorneys, said in a message to The Washington Post. “The IGs have the power and the authority to discover the details of what happened, who was responsible, and who should be held accountable.”
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