Former Olympian indicted on felony charge over alleged Reflecting Pool
vandalism
[July 03, 2026]
By LINDSAY WHITEHURST and MEG KINNARD
WASHINGTON (AP) — A former Olympian was indicted Thursday on a felony
charge in what President Donald Trump has called vandalism of the
Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, where a renovation project he launched
has been riddled with problems.
David Hearn, a former Olympic canoe racer, was indicted on a single
count of property destruction in Washington, D.C., court.
District of Columbia U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said Hearn ripped up
recently installed sealant on the pool in “a deliberate act” that caused
more than $1,000 in damage. She accused him of “forcefully and
violently” pulling up the bottom liner “with both hands” and acting
belligerently toward an employee who told him to stop.
“This is a case with tremendous evidence,” she said, adding that
authorities have made about six other misdemeanor arrests.
In a statement, Democracy Defenders Fund co-founder Norm Eisen and Mary
Dohrmann, senior counsel at Washington Litigation Group, said that they
represented Hearn and that the charges were “outrageous and should be
alarming to every American.” Eisen and Dohrmann construed the case as
representative of “the misuse of government power against an ordinary
citizen based on a concocted narrative.”
Hearn didn’t immediately return a phone call seeking comment. He
previously told The Associated Press that he reached into the pool on
June 19 to examine the newly peeled coating. He said he briefly touched
a chunk that was still attached to the side of the pool, then let go
shortly after a park worker told him to.
“I’m a curious citizen,” Hearn said in a telephone interview last month.
“I reached down to see what it felt like. It was very rubbery.”
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Signage and security fencing warns of explosives along the Lincoln
Memorial Reflecting Pool ahead of July 4th events on the National
Mall, Wednesday, July 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Nathan
Howard)
Hearn, 67, of Bethesda, Maryland, owned a company that made
composite materials used to build watercraft.
Saying that he stopped by the pool during a 64-mile bike ride, Hearn
said he was detained by National Guard troops and U.S. Park Police
for five hours before being released.
Trump said last month that federal authorities made “multiple
arrests” of people he accused of vandalizing the Reflecting Pool as
he struggled to explain why the $16-million rehabilitation project
he launched for the nation’s 250th anniversary seemingly backfired.
Without providing any substantiation, he also said vandals dumped
fertilizer into the pool and slashed the coating with a box cutter.
In subsequent days, National Guard members and Park Police patrolled
the deck around the Reflecting Pool as Trump’s administration faced
a self-imposed deadline to fix a botched renovation before the
nation’s 250th anniversary celebration. Contractors and federal
workers used chemicals and ozone nanobubbles to combat an algae
bloom, and Trump has said that problems most likely require draining
the pool again for liner repairs.
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Kinnard reported from Columbia, S.C.
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