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Attorney Michael Kennedy says a plea bargain and a two year prison sentence is the right thing for his client, Brian Downing.
"What started off as what seemed like a harmless drunken prank has snowballed into a really bad situation for a lot of people," Kennedy explained. "This was a regrettable mistake."
Under the deal, the lawyer says, Downing faces having to serve about ten months behind bars. Kennedy says they key for his client was not having to register as a convicted sex offender.
"He could never go to parent / teacher conferences. He could never go to a little league game," the attorney said. "That was just too big of a risk. While his son will not remember that daddy went to jail for ten months, he would remember if something went wrong, and his father was never able to be there."
Kennedy says Downing plead to the obscenity charge to avoid facing a trial where he could have been convicted of sexual battery and had to register the rest of his life as a sex offender.
The video of Downing's crime shot at the Krystal Burger on Bourbon Street went viral on the Internet after it the incident.
