Jeanine Pirro's office moved to dismiss the destruction-of-property case against former Olympian David Hearn after discovering the Reflecting Pool damage came from a rushed, flawed contractor installation, not vandalism.
The DC US Attorney's office filed a motion on July 31 to drop the single felony count against Hearn, a former Olympic canoeist who was arrested June 19 after National Park Service employees saw him tug at a strip of sealant lining along the edge of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Pirro's office said in the filing that the Department of Interior had initially told prosecutors "nearly all of the damage to the Reflecting Pool was due to vandalism", a claim the government now says was wrong.
The reversal came only after DOI, prodded by what prosecutors described as "dozens and dozens" of follow-up requests, finally turned over 695 megabytes of documents showing the real culprit: a Virginia-based contractor called Atlantic Industrial Coatings, whose rushed paint job began failing almost as soon as it was finished. The filing amounts to a pointed rebuke of the Interior Department by the US Attorney's own office, and raises hard questions about how a man ended up facing a felony over damage a government contractor caused.
AIC held a no-bid contract worth more than $14 million to coat the Reflecting Pool's 68,000-square-foot bottom. Work crews began spraying Rhino 406 and Pipeliner 5000 coatings in early May. Rain delays and problems with expansion joints pushed the schedule back. The job was finished June 9.
Two days later, a National Park Service engineer was already flagging trouble. In a June 11 email cited in the court filing, the engineer warned about overspray along the pool's perimeter:
"I stated my concern that this 'overspray' along the perimeter of the pool could lead to a 1′-2′ strip that is vulnerable to peeling. The contractor would not confirm in field if this was or wasn't a risk."
The lining began peeling "almost immediately" after the work was done, the court filing stated. AIC's coatings were not bonding to the surface. The contractor had oversprayed. And the whole project had been rushed to meet a deadline tied to America 250 celebrations around Independence Day.
By the time Hearn walked past the pool on June 19, the lining was already coming apart on its own.
Park Service employees watched Hearn pull at an upturned end of the lining on June 19 and told him to stop. US Park Police arrested him, cuffing him next to his bicycle. Video of the arrest was posted on X shortly afterward. In the footage, Hearn called the situation "really funny." He also remarked that authorities were "awfully sensitive about the pool."
Pirro visited the Reflecting Pool site on July 1. Her office convened a grand jury the next day. The indictment came back the following day, charging Hearn with one felony count of destruction of property. He pleaded not guilty earlier in July.
The Interior Department assessed the damage from Hearn's tugging at $1,000. That is the sum total of what DOI attributed to his actions, on a pool where a $14 million coating job was already disintegrating from a contractor's failures.
Pirro's filing lays the blame for the botched prosecution squarely on the Department of Interior. DOI initially told the US Attorney's office that the widespread damage to the pool was caused by vandalism. Prosecutors moved forward on that basis, working from what the filing described as "barebones police reports" from US Park Police.
Only after the indictment was returned did DOI begin producing the documents that told a different story. In mid-July, the department handed over the 695 megabytes of records about AIC's installation process, records that showed the damage was the product of a botched job, not criminal destruction.
The filing did not mince words about DOI's conduct. Prosecutors wrote:
"DOI's failure to fully and accurately provide information to USAODC undermined the government's ability to abide by these responsibilities."
And further:
"It was not until USAO-DC repeatedly reached out to DOI dozens and dozens of times that DOI slowly started trickling information to USAO-DC."
The 20-page motion made the government's conclusion plain. AP News reported that a visual inspection found damage throughout the pool, including in the middle, where no vandal would likely have tried to peel the lining. A National Park Service official testified that the pool was already damaged before Hearn allegedly touched it, leaking more than one million gallons of water per week with a pre-existing rip in the liner.
Prosecutors concluded:
"Given all of this newly discovered information, it is difficult to attribute the widespread damage to the Reflecting Pool to vandalism, let alone to establish that fact beyond a reasonable doubt."
Attorneys Norm Eisen, Mary Dohrmann, and Steve Levin issued a joint statement after the dismissal motion was filed. They did not hold back:
"The Trump administration's case against Davey Hearn should never have been brought. Its dismissal today does not erase the abuse of government power in arresting and charging a patriotic American who did nothing wrong."
They added: "The government's approach was ready, fire, aim. The administration owes Mr. Hearn an apology."
President Trump had previously said that others also received citations and that six people were arrested in connection with damage to the pool in June, which he described as including a "350 foot gash, made by a very sharp knife or razors." Those claims were not independently verified in the court filing or supporting coverage.
The Interior Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Several questions remain unanswered: whether the motion to dismiss has been formally granted by the court, what charges if any were filed against the other individuals Trump referenced, and what happens now to AIC's no-bid contract after the government's own filing described its work as fatally flawed.
The timeline tells the story plainly enough. A contractor got a no-bid deal worth more than $14 million. It rushed the job to meet a holiday deadline. A Park Service engineer flagged the problem within 48 hours of completion. The lining kept peeling. And when a former Olympian pulled at a loose strip eight days later, the government charged him with a felony, based on information the Interior Department knew, or should have known, was incomplete.
Pirro's office did the right thing by moving to dismiss once the facts came to light. But the deeper failure belongs to the Interior Department, which told prosecutors the damage was vandalism, sat on the contractor records, and had to be asked "dozens and dozens of times" before it started producing the truth. That is not a miscommunication. That is an agency covering for its own contracting mess while a private citizen faced criminal prosecution.
When the government can charge a man with a felony over $1,000 in damage to a lining that was already falling apart, and only reverse course after being dragged to the evidence, accountability is not optional. It is overdue.
