A former Olympian charged with deliberately damaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is seeking access to all of the closed-door testimony that led to his indictment, pointing to “irregularities” in those grand jury proceedings.
In a court filing Monday, David Hearn’s attorneys requested an order for the government to turn over a complete transcript of all grand jury proceedings. They also want prosecutors to disclose the legal instructions they gave to grand jurors about the elements of Hearn’s alleged crime.
Hearn pleaded not guilty earlier this month to one felony count of property destruction and has a trial scheduled to start Sept. 28 in D.C. Superior Court. The charge, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years upon conviction, accuses Hearn of causing at least $1,000 in damage to the pool.
Not surprising, and a good move by Hearn’s attorneys. The Trump DOJ has already established a terrible track record for improperly presenting cases to grand juries, and given how much of a reach even charging this guy is, I would almost expect the DOJ attorneys involved to have ‘finessed’ the grand jury presentation to secure an indictment on such thin evidence.
Looking forward to seeing how this turns out.
It doesn’t make any logical sense that these charges are still being pursued, particularly after draining the pool and seeing the visible motorcade damage.
How can someone claim on the one hand that a heavy motorcade couldn’t have possibly damaged the pool surface, but also argue that it was fine until this man did $1000 damage with his bare hands. Any sane (unbiased) person would laugh in their face and throw it out.
It makes sense when you know that the goal is to control the conversation about the reflecting pool. If we’re arguing over fake vandalism and unjust prosecutions, then we’re not arguing over the legal authority to make renovations to national landmarks, the no-bid contracts awarded to donors, or the shoddy rush job that actually caused the problem.
It’s a similar tactic that’s been used when ICE murders, deports, or arrests legal residents and citizens. Immediately accuse them of being domestic terrorists and, if they’re still alive, charge them. Everyone starts arguing over the legitimacy of the accusations and charges instead of the fact that a government paramilitary full of undertrained goons is targeting people based primarily on skin color and language and refusing to backtrack because they have actual quotas on how many people they are required to abduct.
Maybe I’m focusing on the wrong part but… a thousand dollars in damages? I know a lot of people in the states can’t rub two dimes together, but a thousand dollars is like… nothing. Especially for the government and not some guy working two jobs.
They’re claiming he should go to jail for 10 years for maybe causing a thousand dollars of damage to public property? I bet a single church could put together a bake sale one time and raise a thousand dollars.
Obviously if the tables were flipped, and some guy was out there breaking drinking fountains and cutting down trees in a park I’d be pissed… but this doesn’t even feel like an interesting lie!
Imagine what they would charge the contractor that fucked up the pool? >!nothing!<
Likely the charge is for federal property damage over $1000. So they could be saying it’s a million dollars. Who know what stupid shit they’ll put in.
If I can go to a public monument and cause a million, or even a thousand, dollars of damage by touching something in a public place with my hand, it’s not really my fault at that point. It’s the fault of whoever made it so fragile.
