A 67-year-old former Olympic canoe racer entered a not guilty plea Thursday in D.C. Superior Court on a felony property destruction charge tied to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, a case that has become a flashpoint over who bears responsibility for the troubled $16 million renovation project.
David Hearn, a three-time Olympian from Bethesda, Maryland, stood before Judge Carmen McLean on July 9 and, through one of his attorneys, denied deliberately damaging the pool's recently installed sealant. The judge imposed no court supervision. A status hearing is set for August 5.
The prosecution, led by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro's office, sought a stay-away order but did not specify in court what location it wanted Hearn kept away from. Prosecutor Kevin Reddington told the judge the government was not seeking any broader supervision. Hearn walked out of the courthouse without speaking to cameras, raised his right hand, and pumped his fist as dozens of supporters gathered outside.
Hearn's account, as reported by the Associated Press, is that he stopped at the Reflecting Pool on June 19 during a 64-mile bike ride, noticed peeling coating, reached in to examine a chunk of sealant already detaching from the side, and let go when a park worker told him to. He was then detained by National Guard troops and U.S. Park Police for five hours.
Pirro's office tells a different story. The U.S. Attorney accused Hearn of "forcefully and violently pulling up and removing the bottom liner", as Breitbart reported, and acting belligerently toward a National Park Service employee who told him to stop. Authorities allege he tore up approximately two square feet of the pool's "American Flag Blue" sealant, causing more than $1,000 in damage.
The grand jury indictment, returned roughly a week before Thursday's hearing, carries a potential sentence of up to ten years in prison, according to Just The News. Ten years, for what Hearn insists amounted to briefly touching an already-peeling pool liner.
Hearn's defense attorneys, Norm Eisen and Mary Dohrmann, came out swinging after the hearing. Eisen framed the prosecution in sweeping terms:
"Every American should be alarmed about this prosecution. It is not a crime to touch the Reflecting Pool."
Dohrmann urged the judge not to impose conditions, calling Hearn an "upstanding citizen and member of the community" and telling reporters flatly that "the government's evidence is weak."
In a prior statement, Hearn's legal team called the indictment a product of a "concocted narrative" and said the charges "should be alarming to every American." They went further, casting the prosecution as a deflection tactic:
"This indictment reflects the administration's effort to shift blame for their own failures. The justice system exists to determine facts, not to provide political cover."
That framing, that the felony charge exists to give political cover for a botched renovation, is the defense's core argument. Whether a jury agrees is another matter. But the underlying facts about the pool's condition give the argument more oxygen than the prosecution might prefer.
The Reflecting Pool renovation was launched ahead of the nation's 250th independence celebrations. What began as a project initially estimated at under $2 million ballooned to $16.4 million, as the Washington Examiner reported. The result has been far from a showcase.
Chunks of blue coating were spotted floating at the surface. An algae bloom turned the water green. Officials have said the pool would most likely need to be drained again for liner repairs. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum acknowledged the algae was "in the pipes," per the Examiner's reporting, a concession that at least some of the pool's problems were systemic, not the work of saboteurs.
President Trump alleged that vandals had dumped fertilizer into the pool and slashed the coating with a box cutter. He posted on Truth Social that "what these terrible Vandals have done is a true affront to both Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, and should be dealt with accordingly," as the New York Post reported.
No evidence supporting the fertilizer or box-cutter claims has been made public. The AP noted that those allegations were made "without providing evidence."
Hearn is not the only person swept up in the enforcement push. Pirro said last week that six other people were arrested on misdemeanor charges related to the pool project. Three of them, Sophie Elaine Dennison-Gibby, Justin Toribio Carreno, and Cameron Michael Thiers, were charged with misdemeanor destruction of public property for allegedly peeling paint from the pool on June 20, the day after Hearn's arrest. All three also pleaded not guilty.
The disparity is worth noting. Those three face misdemeanors. Hearn faces a felony that could put him in prison for a decade. The prosecution says the difference is the extent of the damage, more than $1,000 in Hearn's case. His defense says the government has inflated both the damage and the narrative.
Adam Van Grack, who chaired the U.S. Olympic national governing body for canoe and kayak sports, stood outside the courthouse Thursday and offered a character portrait sharply at odds with the image of a reckless vandal:
"This is a person who has devoted his life to representing the United States on an international stage, caring for the community and protecting and caring for National Park Service property. So the idea that he is a malicious destroyer of federal property shocks the conscience and makes no sense to anybody who's ever known Davey Hearn."
Hearn competed in the 1992, 1996, and 2000 Summer Olympics. Van Grack noted that canoeists have long trained on a course along the Potomac River on National Park Service property, the same agency whose employees are now witnesses against Hearn.
Hearn himself has maintained his innocence since the day of his arrest. He previously told the Washington Post: "I didn't vandalize anything. I didn't destroy or break or peel anything. By the time I realized what was going on, I was being put in handcuffs."
Pirro issued a statement Thursday that struck a firm tone:
"The law applies equally to everyone, and when it is broken, there are consequences."
She added that vandalizing the nation's monuments and public spaces is "an affront to our shared history." Fair enough. No one should be free to damage federal property, and the Reflecting Pool belongs to every American.
But the principle cuts both ways. If the law applies equally, then the public also deserves an honest accounting of how a sub-$2 million renovation became a $16.4 million project that started falling apart almost immediately. If chunks of sealant were already peeling off and floating in the water before anyone touched them, the prosecution needs to explain how a 67-year-old cyclist on a bike ride became the face of deliberate destruction.
The open questions are substantial. What specific evidence does the prosecution hold beyond Pirro's public characterizations? What caused the coating to fail so visibly and so quickly? And why does a case built on an alleged $1,000 in damage to an already-failing liner warrant a felony charge carrying ten years?
Hearn's next court date is August 5. Between now and then, the government will need to show it has more than a narrative. Defense attorney Dohrmann has already told the court the evidence is weak. If she's right, this prosecution will look less like accountability and more like a convenient scapegoat for a renovation that went sideways long before David Hearn stopped his bike.
When a $16 million pool can't hold its own liner together, maybe the problem isn't the guy who touched it.
