More then a slap on the wrist.

The artist Shepard Fairey, whose 2008 poster of Barack Obama became an optimistic symbol of the last presidential campaign before spawning a bitter copyright battle with criminal overtones, was sentenced in federal court in Manhattan on Friday to two years of probation and fined $25,000 for tampering with evidence in the case.

Government prosecutors had argued that Mr. Fairey should serve time for his actions and he faced up to six months in prison. In February he pleaded guilty to a criminal contempt charge after admitting that he had destroyed documents and fabricated others to try to conceal the fact that he had used a particular Associated Press photograph of Mr. Obama as the source of his well-known “Hope” campaign poster. Click the image above to view full article on ArtsBeatNYTimes.