Kentucky Woman Indicted for Damaging World War II Memorial

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Kentucky woman has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of intentionally damaging 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 did not 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 August 13. She was ordered released after her initial court appearance on August 17. President Donald Trump posted about the damage to the memorial on social media, referencing his claims 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 on 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, stating that evidence received refuted the idea that vandals were to blame.