The United States Department of Justice has moved to dismiss a felony criminal case against David Hearn, a 67-year-old former Olympic canoeist from Bethesda, Maryland, after prosecutors acknowledged that damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C. was caused not by vandalism but by a flawed and rushed renovation project. The about-face, described by Hearn's legal team as a stunning abuse of government power, comes weeks after Hearn was indicted on one count of property destruction carrying a maximum sentence of ten years in prison.

In a 20-page court filing submitted Friday, the office of U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro told DC Superior Court that it was only after Hearn's indictment that the Department of the Interior provided additional documents revealing that the damage