Jeanine Pirro Pushes Hard To Keep Alleged Memorial Vandal In Jail

Weeks after being rebuked by President Donald Trump for dropping cases related to alleged damage to the Reflecting Pool, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro is going to unusual lengths to try to keep behind bars a woman accused of vandalizing a memorial elsewhere on the National Mall.

On Monday, a magistrate judge in Washington ordered Melissa Farris, 41, released from custody, rejecting prosecutors’ request that she be kept in jail while she awaits trial on two felony charges. Pirro’s office alleges that the Kentucky woman spray-painted and dumped a foaming substance into the World War II memorial last week.

Pirro’s lawyers asked Magistrate Judge Matthew Sharbaugh to delay Farris’ release, but he declined to do so, according to court records.

Less than three hours after that hearing concluded, prosecutors from Pirro’s office filed a 30-page appeal, asking Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg to overrule the decision. The filing portrays Farris’ alleged actions as grave and contends she poses an “exceptionally high risk of flight.”

“This was a brazen attack on one of the Nation’s most sacred monuments—an enduring symbol of freedom and a solemn tribute to the sacrifice of so many,” Assistant U.S. Attorneys Charles Klug and Samuel Deau wrote in a brief that also carries Pirro’s name in the signature block.

“Rather than honoring the courage and selflessness of the World War II Veterans, Defendant chose to assault that symbol of sacrifice for her own gain and to make a public spectacle,” prosecutors added. “Defendant’s actions are not just criminal, they violate the American values that the Memorial represents.”

Pirro’s tough stance in the vandalism case comes just weeks after she drew intense ire from Trump over her decision to drop the prosecution of former Olympian David Hearn, whom her office had accused of damaging the recently installed lining of the Reflecting Pool.

Pirro said she had to drop the case, and several other prosecutions, because the Interior Department was slow to acknowledge to her office the extent of problems with installation of the lining, which was carried out under extreme time pressure because Trump wanted it ready for celebrations of America’s 250th anniversary on July 4.

On social media and in exchanges with reporters, Trump has repeatedly rejected Pirro’s explanation. Pirro traveled to the White House to make her case to the president in person, but it doesn’t seem he was persuaded by her presentation. He’s continued to suggest that prosecutions are justified, while last week acknowledging “some contractor error.”

On Sunday night, Trump seemed to again needle Pirro publicly over the Reflecting Pool cases, posting an aerial photo on social media that he said showed vandals had caused widespread damage to grass on the National Mall.

“Anybody who thinks the Reflecting Pool wasn’t vandalized should go back to Law School!” Trump wrote. Others said the worn and brown patches of grass in the photo were likely due to wear and tear related to July 4th-related festivities.

Trump has also denounced the vandalism of the World War II memorial and suggested a link to the damage at the Reflecting Pool. “First the Reflecting Pool, now this. We are on their trail! Where do these animals come from???” he wrote on Truth Social Friday.

While prosecutors repeatedly referred to Farris livestreaming and soliciting donations as she spraypainted the memorial, they also acknowledge that when she turned herself in Friday at the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia, she said she was homeless and that an encounter with police in Washington earlier last week resulted in her being cited for stringing up her hammock in a public park.

The videos Farris streamed online contain rambling grievances against the federal government. Prosecutors say signs she appears to have left at the World War II memorial urged others to call their state and federal representatives about the “Ford green energy grant.”

In one video, she makes a vague complaint about infrastructure, lowers her shorts and appears to urinate on a wall. “I’m pissing on your city,” she says.

While most vandalism cases get little attention from U.S. attorneys, Pirro posted twice on social media about Farris’ arrest. The prosecutor also said she was personally aggrieved by Farris’ actions.

“Vandalizing our World War II Memorial is a despicable attack on a sacred monument honoring the Americans who fought and died for our freedom. Those Americans include my father and grandfather,” Pirro wrote on X. She also noted that the felony charges in the case carry potential punishment “of up to ten years in prison.”

Pirro’s language echoed earlier comments by Trump, promising maximum time for monument vandals.

“If you so much as touch, or even think about destroying, a statue or a monument in Washington, D.C., you go to jail for 10 years with no probation, no anything,” Trump said last year as he announced an attempted takeover of the Washington police force and the deployment of National Guard troops. “You get jailed 10 years, no curtailed sentence—10 years.”

While a conviction on such charges could theoretically result in a 10-year prison sentence, people convicted of defacing memorials typically get far shorter sentences. One man accused of spray painting the Lincoln Memorial during Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 was initially hit with a felony charge, but eventually pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor. Last year, Pirro’s office agreed to probation into the case.

To continue to pursue the felony charges against Farris — depredation of federal property in excess of $1,000 and causing injury to a veterans’ memorial — Pirro will need to get an indictment from a grand jury. That has proven difficult for her office in some high-profile cases critics have said were over-charged, like that of Sean Dunn, accused last year of throwing a submarine sandwich at a Customs and Border Protection agent.

After a grand jury refused to indict Dunn, Pirro’s team pursued a misdemeanor assault case against him. After a trial, a jury acquitted Dunn.

Following a hearing Monday, Sharbaugh ordered Farris released on her own recognizance, but ordered her to report to probation officers in Ohio and to stay away from Washington, including the memorial she’s accused of vandalizing last week.

Prosecutors’ appeal of the release order makes a fall-back request to Boasberg if he is unwilling to order Farris’ detention: that she be put on electronic monitoring, such as an ankle bracelet that will indicate her location. However, the same prosecutors argue that she “cannot be reliably supervised” via that technology because she is currently homeless.