US Olympian David Hearn indicted on vandalism charges at Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool

Three-time US Olympian David Hearn has been indicted by a grand jury in Washington DC following US President Donald Trump’s allegations that vandals had damaged the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

Trump’s vandalism claims emerged in the aftermath of the US President’s failed £11million (USD$14.7million) renovation project of the pool, which has been extensively documented as a catastrophe. Trump had demanded the bottom of the Reflecting Pool be painted “American Flag Blue”, but within days of its renovation, algae blooms transformed the water green.

Subsequently, the bottom of the reflecting pool started peeling away in strips, with some suggesting hydrogen peroxide – a common paint stripper – as the culprit, after it was poured into the pool by National Park Service workers to tackle the algae. Trump, however, maintained the damaged paint was the result of vandalism, with the Washington DC indictment accusing Hearn, 67, of “maliciously” breaking or destroying lining material on the bottom of the reflecting pool on June 19.

Prosecutors claim Hearn caused more than £749 ($USD1,000) worth of damage after tearing up the pool’s bottom liner before refusing to cease when confronted. Hearn could face up to 10 years in prison if found guilty.

Jeanine Pirro, the lawyer representing Washington DC, revealed the single felony charge against the three-time Olympian at a press conference on Thursday (July 2). Pirro maintained prosecutors possessed “tremendous evidence” that the Olympian had “forcefully and violently” pulled up and removed the bottom-liner in the reflecting pool.

She accused Hearn of being “belligerent” and “disrespectful” when requested to stop by National Park Service staff. “Today is about accountability for damaging a national resource, a national treasure,” she said.

Legal representatives for Hearn, Norm Eisen and Mary Dohrmann, rejected the allegations following his arrest, accusing the Trump administration of criminalising routine behaviour. “These charges are outrageous and should be alarming to every American,” they said.

“On the eve of our nation’s Independence Day, Americans should be deeply concerned by the misuse of government power against an ordinary citizen based on a concocted narrative.”

Mr Hearn previously told The Associated Press that he reached into the pool to inspect the flaking coating, momentarily touching a section that remained fixed to the pool’s edge. He said he released it after a park employee instructed him to do so.

He said he paused at the pool during a 102-kilometre bike ride but was instead held by National Guard troops and Park Police for five hours before being freed. He also refuted claims of deliberately damaging the pool when speaking to the Washington Post following his arrest.

He said: “I didn’t vandalise anything. I didn’t destroy or break or peel anything. By the time I realised what was going on, I was being put in handcuffs.”

The charge levelled against the American athlete follows Trump’s decision to take to social media in June to condemn the “vandals” he alleges are responsible for harming the pool. Utilising his preferred platform, Truth Social, he stated that federal authorities had made “multiple arrests” of individuals he claimed were vandalising the Reflecting Pool.

Trump wrote online: “Many additional people have been arrested having to do with the disgraceful Vandalism of our beautiful Reflecting Pool. “What they have damaged does not even include the earlier killing of a large amount of grass which was, by far, the least of it. They took some form of knife or blade, and put a 250-foot-long gash into the beautiful facade of what took so much work, competence, and money to build and complete.

They also poured corrosive and destructive chemicals into the Pool. ” The 47th US President also turned on a journalist amid the Reflecting Pool controversy, accusing “lightweight ABC Reporter Jonathan Karl” of sticking his hand in the pool and trying to rub the rubber off the surface. His remarks follow Karl’s report for ABC News that he and his team found the Reflecting Pool filled with gunk and green algae. Karl added that the multi-million dollar paint job also appeared to be falling apart.. This flies in the face of claims made by Trump at the time, who bragged the renovation was “very complex, but powerful”.

The Reflecting Pool has long been a headache for successive US administrations, with persistent algae buildup frequently hampering the water’s ability to reflect the memorial as originally intended.