U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office filed felony charges Friday against a woman accused of putting bubbles in the World War II Memorial fountain and spray-painting a nearby stone balcony.
“Clean hands dirty $,” was painted on the balcony, according to a criminal complaint, which contained photos of a woman spraying the graffiti and foam bubbling in the fountain.
Pirro identified the woman as Melissa L. Farris in a post on the social platform X on Friday morning.
“Vandalizing our World War II Memorial is a despicable attack on a sacred monument,” Pirro wrote.
Farris was charged with depredation against property of the United States and destruction of veterans’ memorials, according to a criminal complaint. The felony offenses carry penalties of up to 10 years in prison.
The move follows Pirro’s public disagreement with President Donald Trump after she dropped several lawsuits earlier this month against alleged vandals of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. In a court filing, Pirro’s office also took aim at Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s department, saying officials had stalled on handing over evidence about the botched installation of a pool liner, which was meant to stop leaks but quickly peeled in patches.
Even after Pirro dropped criminal charges against four defendants, both Trump and Burgum continued to assert that vandals had damaged the pool liner.
Trump also expressed displeasure with Pirro’s decision, saying she “folded like an umbrella.”
According to the complaint against Farris, the damage to the World War II memorial exceeds $1,000.
U.S. Park Police were first alerted to a “disorderly” person around 2 p.m. Thursday, who had been seen spray-painting and videotaping herself, according to the complaint. When approached by a park ranger, the woman fled, the complaint said.
Farris was identified by her Kentucky driver’s license from an Aug. 10 arrest, according to the complaint.
In various social media videos reviewed by POLITICO on an account identified in the complaint, Farris describes navigating her life experiencing homelessness, struggling with her mental health and interacting with law enforcement both in Washington and elsewhere. Some of her posts are tearful and relate fears that she is being stalked or that law enforcement have failed to take her seriously.
“Up until recently, I didn’t even consider myself a patriot. But now, I suppose I’m a revolutionist,” she said in one video. “But the weird thing to me is that a revolution is just expecting democracy to be democracy.”
In a tearful post Friday on her Facebook page, Farris said she would be turning herself in to police and said she had only been “trying to get help for myself” after appeals to law enforcement and the media were ineffective.
The public defender’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The memorial, which is located on the National Mall near the reflecting pool, had been remediated by Friday morning.
Trump slammed “Spray Painting Vandals” for harming the World War II Memorial in a post on his social media site Friday morning, before Farris’ charges were announced.
“THERE CAN BE NO GREATER INSULT TO THOSE AMERICAN HEROES WHO DIED IN WORLD WAR II,” he said. “We are on their trail! Where do these animals come from???”
The Friends of the National World War II Memorial also condemned the vandalism in a statement Thursday.
“Whatever the intent, defacing a place dedicated to the service and sacrifice of the World War II generation is unacceptable,” the group said. “A national memorial honoring those who served and those who never returned home should never be used as a canvas for vandalism.”
The U.S. Park Police, the law enforcement arm of the National Park Service in Washington, did not respond to a request for comment.
The agency has responded to several incidents in recent months on the National Mall, where it often deals with First Amendment protests and rallies, including June damage to the mall’s grass that spelled out a giant “86 47” in an apparent reference to removing Trump, the 47th president, from office.
