Lawyers for a former Olympian who was cleared of charges of vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool are asking internal government watchdogs to investigate the conduct of senior Justice and Interior Department officials, accusing prosecutors of indicting him despite knowing that a renovation of the pool was failing.<\/p>\n
In a letter sent on Tuesday to the inspectors general for those agencies, lawyers for the former athlete, David Hearn, say the agencies ignored their own evidence in a rush to satisfy President Trump\u2019s desire for criminal charges. Prosecutors then provided a court \u201cblatantly false\u201d information about when they became aware that the real culprit for the badly peeling liner in the pool was a botched renovation overseen by Mr. Trump, his lawyers wrote.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause of the actions of various D.O.J. and D.O.I. 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,\u201d Mr. Hearn\u2019s lawyers wrote. Among the lawyers requesting the investigation is Michael R. Bromwich, a former inspector general at the Justice Department.<\/p>\n
A spokesman for the Justice Department inspector general declined to comment. Representatives for the Interior Department inspector general and the office of Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney in Washington, did not respond to messages seeking comment.<\/p>\n
Ms. Pirro has defended her decision to pursue the prosecution and blamed the Interior Department<\/a> for not providing relevant evidence in time. But the letter from Mr. Hearn\u2019s lawyers says that her office knew at least a day before it took the case to a grand jury that the pool liner had been failing for weeks.<\/p>\n \u201cIn its motion to dismiss, the government claims it first learned of the liner\u2019s pervasive failures during a defense expert\u2019s inspection on July 17, 2026,\u201d Mr. Hearn\u2019s lawyers wrote. \u201cThis is blatantly false and is directly refuted by the government\u2019s own file.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Hearn\u2019s lawyers wrote that a June 30 damage assessment, which prosecutors received by July 1, \u201cdocumented damage throughout the pool as early as June 8,\u201d more than a week before Mr. Hearn visited the pool. Prosecutors gave that document to Mr. Hearn\u2019s lawyers on July 10, \u201ca week before the date on which it now claims to have first learned of these liner issues,\u201d the letter says.<\/p>\n