A D.C. Superior Court judge formally dismissed the felony destruction of property charge against Olympic canoeist David Hearn on Thursday, but the fight over whether prosecutors can ever refile is just beginning.
Judge Todd Edelman issued a written order ending the case after both sides agreed the charge should not stand, though they remain at odds over the terms. Hearn wants the dismissal with prejudice, which would bar the Justice Department from bringing the case again. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro's office wants the opposite, a dismissal without prejudice that keeps the door open for future prosecution.
Edelman, an Obama-appointed judge, made clear he saw no reason to leave the felony hanging over Hearn while lawyers argued about the legal fine print. "Given the positions of the parties, the Court discerns no reason why this felony case should remain pending against Mr. Hearn while the parties litigate, and the Court resolves, the remaining legal issues," the judge wrote in his order.
Both sides will submit additional written briefs later this month before a hearing on the prejudice question. The outcome will determine whether the federal government retains any ability to recharge Hearn, or whether this prosecution ends for good.
The case collapsed after the Interior Department belatedly produced evidence showing the damage to the recently renovated Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was caused by a contractor's flawed installation, not by Hearn or anyone else acting with criminal intent. The contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings, held a $14.7 million no-bid contract and rushed to finish the project ahead of Trump's America 250 celebration.
Pirro's office backed away from the indictment the prior Friday, casting blame squarely on the Interior Department for withholding critical information during the investigation. Federal prosecutors acknowledged in a court filing that they never would have taken the case to a grand jury if they had known what the Interior Department already knew.
As Fox News reported, prosecutors stated bluntly: "Had DOI been forthcoming with the information clearly in its possession, the government would not have sought a grand jury indictment."
That admission is damning, not of the prosecution's motives, but of the Interior Department's handling of the investigation. A federal agency sat on evidence that a government contractor oversprayed and botched the installation while prosecutors built a felony case against a man who did not cause the damage.
When the administration initially pledged full prosecution over what appeared to be deliberate destruction of a national landmark, the public anger was understandable. But the Interior Department's failure to share what it knew turned a legitimate law-enforcement response into a wrongful prosecution.
Hearn, a former U.S. Olympic canoeist who was arrested and charged with felony vandalism, was one of seven people the administration accused of sabotaging the Reflecting Pool renovation project. His defense attorneys, Norm Eisen, Mary Dohrmann, and Steve Levin, have demanded a formal apology from the Trump administration.
In a statement carried by the Washington Examiner, the attorneys 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."
The defense team has also argued that evidence of pre-existing defects in the Reflecting Pool was publicly visible through photos, video, and news coverage before Hearn was ever charged. Their filing accused prosecutors of moving forward "before it had obtained or evaluated the information necessary to establish a good-faith basis for the charge."
Pirro herself conceded the point in her office's filing. "Given all of this newly discovered information," she wrote, "it is difficult to attribute the widespread damage to the Reflecting Pool to vandalism, let alone to establish that fact beyond a reasonable doubt," Just The News reported.
The dismissal produced a rare, public rift between President Trump and his own U.S. Attorney for D.C. Trump has repeatedly pointed to the Reflecting Pool case as proof that vandals disrupted the renovation, and he has insisted the damage was intentional.
After Pirro moved to drop the charges, Trump publicly criticized her, saying she "choked because the judge was really vicious." He called the Reflecting Pool work a success overall: "They did a beautiful job. There were a couple of little things, but that was not a big deal. And everybody saw the vandalism. All you have to do is look at the tape."
Trump also called Pirro "totally wrong" for moving to dismiss. The friction between a president and his own appointed prosecutor, a former Fox News host he personally selected for the role, underscores how politically charged the Reflecting Pool saga became.
But the facts, as they now stand, do not support the vandalism theory. Pirro's own office acknowledged the damage stemmed from a contractor's shoddy work under a rushed timeline. The Interior Department's failure to disclose that evidence in a timely manner is the real accountability gap in this story, and no one in that agency has yet answered for it.
Judge Edelman noted in his order that the two sides agree on the bottom line but not on the remedy. "Both parties thus agree that the case against Mr. Hearn should be dismissed; they disagree as to the nature of that dismissal," he wrote.
If the court grants dismissal with prejudice, the Justice Department loses any ability to refile charges against Hearn. If it is without prejudice, prosecutors could theoretically bring the case back, though doing so after publicly conceding the evidence does not support a conviction would be an extraordinary step.
Hearn's attorneys have made clear they will fight for the with-prejudice outcome. Given that the government itself admitted it never should have sought the indictment, the defense has strong ground. A hearing on the question is expected later this month after both sides file additional briefs.
The broader question, whether anyone at the Interior Department faces consequences for withholding evidence that led to a wrongful felony prosecution, remains entirely unanswered.
When a federal agency buries evidence and an American citizen gets charged with a felony he did not commit, the system owes more than a quiet dismissal, it owes an accounting.
