Fairey, who admitted to destroying electronic records and creating fake documents in an effort to thwart a copyright lawsuit brought by the Associated Press, might get prison time as part of his sentence on Friday reports the smoking gun:

Federal prosecutors want Shepard Fairey, the artist who created the Barack Obama “Hope” poster, to serve time in prison following his misdemeanor conviction for destroying and fabricating documents in connection with a civil lawsuit over the iconic campaign image.
In advance of Friday’s scheduled sentencing of Fairey in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, the Department of Justice has filed a memorandum arguing that a prison term for the 42-year-old artist would be “appropriate.”
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“A sentence without any term of imprisonment sends a terrible message to those who might commit the same sort of criminal conduct,” wrote prosecutor Daniel Levy in a September 2 memo. “Encouraging parties to game the civil litigation system…creates terrible incentives and subverts the truth-finding function of civil litigation.”

Fairey started the ball rolling by suing the A.P. Over Obama Image, to which the AP responded to by suing him back, then Fairey pleaded guilty of contempt for faking electronic files. I'm sure Shepard Fairey stands by his statement that this was a bad idea still. Fairey’s lawyers says he described it as "the worst mistake of his life."

Fairey, seen in the above mug shot, has admitted destroying electronic records and creating fake documents in an effort to thwart a copyright lawsuit brought by the Associated Press, which contended that Fairey had based the “Hope” image on a photo taken by an AP lensman.
Levy stated that Fairey reaped significant reputational and financial benefits from the Obama “Hope” image, which was created in early-2008. The prosecutor specifically cited the escalating combined profits of three Fairey companies, which grossed $2.93 million in 2007, $4.59 million in 2008, and $6.08 million in 2009.