Federal prosecutors in Washington DC can never again charge the former Olympic canoeist David Hearn over damage to the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, a judge ruled on Thursday, closing a case the US attorney’s office had already conceded it should not have brought.
Judge Todd Edelman, of the DC superior court, dismissed the case with prejudice, siding with Hearn’s lawyers over the office of the US attorney Jeanine Pirro, which had wanted to keep the option of refiling.
Pirro, a Donald Trump ally, publicized the charges at a press conference in July. Later that month her office moved to drop the case, conceding that the damage resulted from flawed installation rather than anything Hearn did.
Trump, who had pressed for the prosecution, told reporters in the Oval Office on 3 August that Pirro had “choked” in abandoning the vandalism charges, and “folded like an umbrella”.
Edelman agreed to the dismissal in August but left open whether it would be with or without prejudice. Prosecutors argued for the latter, which would have allowed a future revival. Hearn’s lawyers countered that the case was politically driven and lacked factual support, and warned of a risk of “harassment and bad faith” if the door stayed open.
At a hearing last month, Edelman pressed a prosecutor on the point. “What future prosecution could even occur?” he asked. Michael Spence, a career official in the US attorney’s office, said he did not know, though he stressed there was no active investigation of Hearn “as of this second”.
The court heard that the section of the pool Hearn allegedly touched was already damaged, and that prosecutors could not prove losses beyond $1,000, which would make a new felony case unworkable.
Edelman also asked how he should regard Trump’s public calls for a prosecution that Pirro’s office itself accepted had no merit. Trump’s statements, Spence replied, “speak for themselves”.
Steve Levin, one of Hearn’s attorneys, accused the government of rushing to indict in order to please the president and of misleading a grand jury. Spence maintained that prosecutors had acted in good faith.
Norm Eisen, another of Hearn’s lawyers, called the ruling “a victory for the rule of law and for an innocent American seeking justice”.
“This case never should have been brought in the first place,” he said.
