U.S. Olympic canoeist David “Davey” Hearn was indicted Thursday on a single count of destruction of property after he was accused of causing more than $1,000 worth of damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
Hearn was indicted in D.C. Superior Court on the felony charge.
Jeanine Pirro, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said National Park Service employees saw Hearn “forcefully and violently pulling up and removing the bottom liner” of the pool with both hands during a June 19 incident. She alleged that he damaged about two square feet of the sealant from the bottom of the pool.
“A parks employee actually told Hearn to stop, to stop his behavior and stop what he was doing,” Pirro said at a Thursday news conference. “Hearn reacted by shouting at the parks employee, saying that she cared too much about the Reflecting Pool, and why did she even care, since it wasn’t her pool.”
Pirro said employees described Hearn’s alleged behavior as “belligerent, rude, and disrespectful” and accused him of deliberately damaging the pool.
An attorney for Hearn did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Hearn previously told NBC News that he was arrested and detained for five hours after he touched a piece of the detached coating in the pool. He said he had stopped at the landmark site during a bike ride “to satisfy my curiosity as a citizen of what was happening with all the algae and the peeling blue coating.”
Hearn said he did not remove, tear, or destroy any of the coating.
“The condition of the Reflecting Pool was the same after I stepped away from the water as it was before I got there,” he said.
Pirro said he faces 10 years in prison if convicted.
Several people have been arrested and cited after President Donald Trump blamed, without evidence, vandals for destroying the pool. This spring, the pool underwent a $14-million-plus rehabilitation project, and a new liner and coating were added in a color Trump named “American flag blue.”
But photos of the pool showed that the blue sealant had started to peel away, leaving chunks floating on the surface, while algae growth turned the water green.
Last month, the National Park Service said that the liner of the bottom of the pool was cut with a sharp knife or razor, causing damage to the foam sealant. The June 9 incident was reported to the U.S. Park Police.
The claims were made in a court document filed as part of a lawsuit by a nonprofit organization seeking to halt the Trump administration’s work on the pool. According to Frank Lands, deputy director of operations for the park service, roughly 70 fence post tops were also thrown into the pool.
