No jail but 300 hours of community service for US artist Shepard Fairey

Los Angeles street artist Shepard Fairey poses in front of the Barack Obama Hope artwork he designed in the Echo Park area of Los Angeles. AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes @Artdaily

The artist who created the “HOPE” poster that came to symbolize Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign was ordered to do 300 hours of community service Friday for a criminal contempt conviction but was spared jail time.

Shepard Fairey, 42, of Los Angeles nodded his head several times and said “OK” as U.S. Magistrate Judge Frank Maas told him he must commit no crimes during two years of probation and must pay a $25,000 fine to the U.S. government.

During remarks before the sentence was announced, Fairey called his decision to fabricate evidence in a civil lawsuit he brought against The Associated Press in 2009 the “worst thing I’ve done in my life.” He also apologized.

“I am deeply ashamed and remorseful that I didn’t live up to my own standards of honesty and integrity,” he said.

Fairey in Fall 2009 admitted that he altered evidence after basing the iconic poster on a 2006 AP photograph. He said he based the poster on one photograph when he actually had based it on another that was nearly identical to the poster he created. The red, cream and light-blue image shows a determined-looking Obama gazing upward, with the caption “HOPE.”

Read full article: No jail time for Obama ‘HOPE’ poster artist; ordered to do 300 hours of community service