Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., publicly identified and charged a woman with vandalizing the National World War II Memorial in the district.
The nation’s foremost monument honoring U.S. service members’ sacrifices in World War II was vandalized with graffiti and bubble soap in its fountain on Thursday, setting off a brief manhunt for the suspect. On Friday morning, Pirro unveiled felony charges against a woman identified as the prime suspect, Melissa Farris, who was caught on camera apparently defacing the monument.
“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 in a post on X.
“This morning, we are filing two felony charges, Depredation Against Property of the United States and Destruction of Veterans’ Memorials, in Federal District Court against Melissa L. Farris, offenses that carry penalties of up to ten years in prison. She is now in custody,” she added.
The pictures attached allegedly show Farris spray-painting the monument and carrying a long tube on her back.
Pirro’s post came just over an hour after President Donald Trump’s first public comment on the matter, a Truth Social post, in which he said authorities were “on their trail!”
TRUMP SAYS ‘NO GREATER INSULT’ THAN WWII MEMORIAL VANDALISM: ‘WE ARE ON THEIR TRAIL’
“Where do these animals come from???” he wrote.
The vandalism came just after the monument concluded its four-month renovation costing $3 million in May. The bubbly soap risked damaging the mechanical pumps for the fountain.