A judge on Thursday officially dismissed a case against former Olympian David Hearn, who was accused of feloniously vandalizing the Reflecting Pool earlier this summer. Judge Todd Edelman stopped short of barring prosecutors in Washington, DC, from being able to revive the same case against Hearn in the future, as his attorneys had asked.
Background of the Case
The formal dismissal comes nearly a week after prosecutors in the US Attorney’s Office in DC acknowledged in a court filing that President Donald Trump’s $14 million renovation of the Reflecting Pool was “hasty and botched” and that there wasn’t evidence to support their assertion that Hearn had criminally damaged it.
Lawyers for Hearn said in a statement on Thursday, “Davey Hearn is innocent and today’s dismissal reflects that simple fact. But this case never should’ve been brought in the first place. The Department of Justice’s decision to seek an indictment was a miscarriage of justice.”
The Justice Department last Friday asked Edelman to dismiss the case “without prejudice,” meaning they would be able to pursue it again in the future if they wanted to. Hearn’s lawyers similarly asked for the case to be dropped, but urged the court to go one step further.
Original reporting: KTBS 3 (Shreveport) — read the source article.
