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Melissa Farris is scheduled to be arraigned next week on two
felony counts. Grand jurors indicted her Thursday on charges of
destroying the veterans' memorial and destroying government
property.
An attorney for Farris didn't immediately respond to an email
seeking comment on Friday.
Farris, of Elizabethtown, Kentucky, is suspected of spray
painting the words “Clean hands dirty $” on the monument and
filling a fountain with bubbles on Aug. 13. She was ordered
released after her initial court appearance on Aug. 17.
President Donald Trump posted about the damage to the memorial
on social media with a reference to his repeated claims —
without providing evidence — that vandals had been damaging the
nearby Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
“Our beautiful World War II Memorial was just hit by Spray
Painting Vandals,” Trump wrote his Truth Social site. “First the
Reflecting Pool, now this.”
A former Olympian was charged in late July with deliberately
damaging the Reflecting Pool, but the Justice Department later
moved to dismiss that case, saying evidence prosecutors had
received refuted the idea that vandals were to blame.
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