WASHINGTON– A judge in the nation’s capital set a trial date in September for a former Olympic canoe racer accused of deliberately damaging the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, the site of a troubled multimillion-dollar renovation project championed by President Donald Trump.

D.C. Superior Court Judge Todd Edelman scheduled David Hearn’s trial date for September 28 during a hearing Monday. It was Hearn’s second court appearance since a grand jury indicted him on felony destruction of property charges.

Hearn, who pleaded not guilty to the charge on July 9, asked the court to dismiss the case. In a court filing, his attorneys argued that the government has failed to adequately preserve important physical evidence from the Reflecting Pool.

At least three other people have been charged in the same court with misdemeanors for allegedly removing paint chips from the Reflecting Pool. The felony charge against Hearn, which accuses him of causing at least $1,000 in damage to the pool, carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years upon conviction.

Trump ordered renovation work on the pool ahead of the country’s 250th independence celebrations, but the project has been plagued with problems. Trump initially suggested the pool renovations would cost $1.5 million, but the cost of the project has surpassed $16 million.

Trump, a Republican, has claimed that vandals have damaged the pool, but critics of the administration attribute the problems to shoddy repair work. Hearn and his supporters claim his prosecution is a politically motivated attempt by the Trump administration to deflect blame and make him and others scapegoats for their own failures.

Recently, workers emptied the pool again, leading Hearn’s lawyers to argue that the government was destroying evidence of his innocence.

“The Constitution simply does not allow the government to charge a man with destroying an object, retain sole custody of that object, and then drain, disturb, and alter it before the defense can examine it, despite a written demand for its preservation. And yet that is what has happened here,” they wrote in their motion to dismiss.

Hearn, 67, previously told The Associated Press that he was detained by National Guard troops and U.S. Park Police for five hours after passing the pool during a bike ride on June 19. He said he walked over to examine the pool’s freshly peeled liner and briefly touched a piece stuck to the side of the pool, but obeyed a park worker who told him to let it go.

Hearn, who is from Bethesda, Maryland, competed in three Summer Olympics, earning his best finish of ninth at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee says on its website.