WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers for a former Olympian whom the Justice Department charged with intentionally damaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, only to abruptly drop the case after determining he was not responsible, urged two government watchdogs on Tuesday to examine what they say was a flawed investigation and prosecution.
The attorneys for David Hearn said in a letter to the inspectors general for the departments of Justice and Interior that
“incompetence and misconduct" were committed by government officials operating under pressure from President Donald Trump, and that watchdog investigations were needed “to determine what happened inside their agencies that led to the shocking and indefensible treatment” of their client.
The letter was filed days after a District of Columbia judge permanently dismissed the case, ending a brief prosecution derided by defense lawyers and other critics as an abuse of government power pushed by a president who insisted vandalism, not human error, was to blame for damage at the landmark. The request indicates that Hearn's lawyers see an additional need for accountability even after the dismissal of the legal proceedings.
“In light of these findings and the government’s own admissions, a critical purpose of the requested investigations is to collect the facts — through witness interviews and the collection and analysis of electronic media and documents — necessary to hold accountable the individuals and groups who failed Mr. Hearn, the criminal justice system, and the public,” the lawyers wrote.
“These events," they said, "demand accountability and full and unconstrained investigations by your offices.”
Spokespeople for the U.S. attorney's office, which brought the case, and the Interior Department did not immediately return emails seeking comment. Representatives of the two inspectors general offices also did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment on whether they would act on the lawyers' request.
D.C. Superior Court Judge Todd Edelman on Thursday dismissed the case with “prejudice,” which would block U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office from refiling the felony charge against him. He said the decision was warranted by the case's “exceptional circumstances” and agreed with defense attorneys that the government “shot first and asked questions later” by charging Hearn in a "lightning-fast indictment process.”
Pirro moved to dismiss the case in July weeks after it was brought, saying newly produced evidence from the Interior Department showed Hearn was not responsible for damage to the pool’s lining. She attributed the damage instead to a botched installation by a contractor as well as a rush to complete the project in time for this summer’s America 250 celebration in Washington.
But Hearn's lawyers say in their letter that the evidence that established their client's innocence had been in the Justice Department's possession for weeks and was “simply ignored.” They asked the department's inspector general to investigate why prosecutors “rushed to indict” under what they said was political pressure from Trump, who had launched a massive renovation project before the anniversary celebrations and later accused Pirro of having “choked” and “folded like an umbrella" when she dismissed the case.
The attorneys also called on the watchdog to investigate, among other things, whether prosecutors had failed to disclose exculpatory information in their possession; whether prosecutors relied on a grand jury witness who presented an unsupported figure on monetary damages to the pool; whether comments Pirro made at the indictment press conference violated Justice Department policy; and whether Pirro also violated policy by approaching and questioning a defense expert.
“The record reflects an indictment obtained through unusual haste and a prosecution shaped from the outset by political pressure and built on an inadequate investigation," they said, adding, “The sprint to charge Mr. Hearn mirrored the rushed renovation itself, which the President had publicly committed to completing by a fixed deadline.”
Hearn, 67, of Bethesda, Maryland, competed in three Summer Olympics, earning his best finish, ninth, at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee says on its website.
He has said he was on a bike ride on June 19 when he reached in to examine the pool’s newly peeled coating and briefly touched a chunk attached to the side of the pool. But he said he obeyed a park worker’s command to let go of it. He was nonetheless stopped by police officers, arrested and detained for nearly five hours.
He was later indicted on one count of property destruction, a charge carrying a maximum 10-year prison sentence.
His lawyers questioned whether prosecutors properly presented the grand jury with adequate evidence to support the charge and the amount of damage alleged by the government. They said prosecutors failed to “critically examine” allegations of a supposedly key witness whose claims about her interactions with Hearn were contradicted by video evidence, and withheld from the defense team body-worn camera recordings and other evidence from the case.
And they also challenge Pirro herself over her actions, saying that she approached a defense expert at the pool on July 17 and asked about his conclusions and the results of his work. No report of that interaction has been produced to defense lawyers, they say.
“A U.S. Attorney who personally interrogates a represented defendant’s testifying expert, in the field, surrounded by her own staff and without notice to counsel, is not gathering evidence — she is testing how the defense intends to prove its case, and doing so in a setting that essentially held the expert captive,” the letter states.
The letter also urges the Interior Department's inspector general to investigate who made the decision “to proceed with an unqualified contractor;" why work on the pool proceeded despite known risks; why the department relied on National Guardsmen to detain Hearn; and why officials made “publicly defamatory” statements even after learning of the dismissal of the case.
