Kentucky woman indicted on charges she damaged the World War II Memorial in Washington

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Kentucky woman has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges that she intentionally damaged The World War II Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

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.