U.S. federal prosecutors have dropped the felony charge against veteran masters cyclist and three-time Olympic canoeist David Hearn, who was arrested in June near the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, after concluding the pool’s damage stemmed from faulty construction work rather than vandalism.
In a court filing on Friday 31 July 2026, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia moved to dismiss the destruction of property charge against Hearn, admitting that newly obtained documents from the Department of the Interior showed the pool’s liner failure resulted from flawed installation by contractor Atlantic Industrial Coatings, compounded by a rushed schedule ahead of the America 250 celebrations. Prosecutors said a recent inspection found damage throughout the pool, including in areas a vandal would be unlikely to target, undermining the original case.
Hearn, who races for the Washington, D.C.-based Artemis Racing club, was arrested on Friday 19 June 2026 after stopping during a training ride to examine a loose section of the pool’s newly installed blue liner. He pleaded not guilty following a grand jury indictment and faced up to ten years in prison if convicted.
Independent of the underlying facts, President Trump was reportedly unhappy with the decision to dismiss the charges and made his views known in a Truth Social post directed at U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, who oversaw the case.
“I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro,” Mr. Trump wrote. “I don’t know what she was thinking? To me, it was a pure case of VANDALISM,”
Hearn’s attorneys said the prosecution should never have been brought, calling the government’s handling of the case an overreach against an innocent citizen.
In addition to his courtroom victory, Hearn is also winning on the Mid-Atlantic masters circuit, most recently claiming victory at the James P. Bellora Memorial Giro di Coppi on 13 June in Maryland and again on 26 July at the Mt. Davis Challenge in Pennsylvania.
Photo Credit: Getty
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