Attorneys for Olympic canoeist David Hearn asked the internal watchdogs at the Justice and Interior departments on Tuesday to investigate the circumstances surrounding his arrest, indictment and the dismissal of the case, according to a letter seen by CBS News.
Hearn’s case garnered national attention, after he was falsely accused of vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and subsequently indicted on a charge of felony destruction of government property.
Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, later moved to dismiss the case after she said new information had come to light showing the damage had been caused by a contractor’s “botched installation,” not vandalism.
“Because of the actions of various DOJ and DOI employees, Mr. Hearn was deprived of his liberty, indicted for a crime he did not commit, threatened with incarceration of up to 10 years, and endured the defaming of his name and reputation by high-ranking government officials,” Hearn’s attorneys wrote in the letter to DOJ Inspector General Don Berthiaume and DOI Inspector General Caryl Brzymialkiewicz.
Those officials, they pointed out, included Pirro, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and President Trump.
“The DOJ OIG and the DOI OIG must conduct detailed and comprehensive investigations to determine what happened inside their agencies that led to the shocking and indefensible treatment of Mr. Hearn,” they wrote. “Anything less than a full and fair review would be a betrayal of your mission and perpetuate the outrageous mistreatment of Mr. Hearn.”
Hearn was initially detained in jail for five hours on June 19, after he stopped by the Reflecting Pool during a bike ride. He put his hand into the water and touched a piece of the liner that had already come loose before he was asked by a member of the National Park Police to remove his hand from the water.
His lawyers said that during his five-hour detention, he was never read his Miranda rights or permitted to make a phone call, and that he only learned he was initially facing misdemeanor charges when he found two citations stuffed into a brown paper bag with his other belongings shortly after his release from custody.
A grand jury in the D.C. Superior Court later indicted him on the felony count on July 2.
Despite a request from Hearn’s attorneys to preserve the physical evidence in the case, his lawyers said the government fenced off the area around the Reflecting Pool in question and undertook repairs to the section of the liner that was at the heart of the indictment.
By the end of July, Pirro moved to dismiss the case altogether, alleging that the Interior Department had delayed producing materials to prosecutors that undermined the evidentiary basis for the case.
“The record reflects an indictment obtained through unusual haste and a prosecution shaped from the outset by political pressure and built on an inadequate investigation,” Hearn’s lawyers wrote in the letter to the inspectors general.
Pirro was later spotted toting a large box into the White House that sources later confirmed to CBS News contained evidence from the case that she presented to Mr. Trump, after he lashed out at her for dismissing the case against Hearn.
The White House has since held meetings with prosecutors to explore whether other charges could be brought. But a Superior Court Judge foreclosed that possibility on Oct. 1, after he ruled that the case had to be dismissed with prejudice — meaning it cannot be brought again.
“Should the Court dismiss this case in a fashion that allows the government to reinitiate prosecution in the future, the Court would be exposing him to the risk that, due to pressure from the President Of the United States apparently motivated at least in part by Mr. Hearn’s political views, he would again be charged with a crime that prosecutors have determined he did not commit,” the judge wrote in the opinion dismissing the case.
The letter alleges that prosecutors had exculpatory evidence in hand before they sought an indictment against Hearn. It also alleges that Pirro improperly approached one of the defense’s expert witnesses who was inspecting the Reflecting Pool and peppered the expert with questions.
“Defense counsel was given no notice that the encounter would take place and was not present for it, and the government has never produced any report, note, or record of the exchange,” Hearn’s attorneys wrote.
They continued, “A U.S. Attorney who personally interrogates a represented defendant’s testifying expert, in the field, surrounded by her own staff and without notice to counsel, is not gathering evidence—she is testing how the defense intends to prove its case.”
They also accused Pirro of running afoul of the rules of professional conduct for attorneys when she spoke publicly about the case during a press conference, and questioned whether the sole grand jury witness in the case had been recalled in order to “manufacture” a damages estimate to help support the felony charge.
Hearn’s lawyers also complained that Pirro’s statements announcing the indictment “extended well beyond the bare fact of the charge.”
“[S]he previewed anticipated witness testimony, vouched for the credibility of government witnesses, opined directly on Mr. Hearn’s guilt, and characterized the alleged conduct as ‘anarchy’ and ‘criminal behavior’ — conduct implicating the trial-publicity and prosecutorial-conduct constraints of D.C. Rules of Professional Conduct,” Hearn’s attorneys wrote.
