Ed Brodsky, elected state attorney for the 12th Judicial District, said his office never intended to seek the maximum 15-year sentence against Jose Caballero, 40, or Elissa Alvarez, 20, for having sex on Cortez Beach in July.

The couple was found guilty Monday on charges of lewd and lascivious exhibition after a video played in court showed Alvarez moving on Caballero in a sexual manner. Witnesses testified a 3-year-old girl had seen the couple.

The charge carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison, and requires both to register as sex offenders.

"It was never our intention to seek 15 years for either of them," Brodsky said. "That's not a reasonable sentence."

Defense attorney Ronald Kurpiers said because Caballero served a previous prison sentence for cocaine trafficking within the past three years and the prosecution had filed prison release reoffender paperwork, Caballero would be sentenced to the maximum sentence of 15 years under Florida's prisoner release reoffender law.

"As outrageous as Mr. Caballero's behavior was, it would be even more outrageous for the state to make him spend 15 years in prison."

"Having sex on the beach is not a crime worthy of such a barbaric sentence," reads the campaign's subtitle.

"I hate to say it, but they honestly believed that they didn't do anything wrong, and they didn't think the jury would think they had done anything wrong," Kurpiers said. "The question is if they were skewed in that thinking, and I think that yes, they were."

Alvarez and Caballero are in the Manatee County jail awaiting sentencing.