Idaho Senator Larry Craig, seen on Sept. 1, has said he wants to withdraw the guilty plea he entered in August.
(Matt Cilley/Associated Press)

U.S. Senator Larry Craig filed court papers Monday seeking to withdraw his guilty plea in an airport sex sting, arguing that he entered the plea under stress caused by media inquiries into his sexuality.

Craig, an Idaho Republican, pleaded guilty in August to disorderly conduct following his June arrest in a sting operation in a men's bathroom at the Minneapolis airport. A police report alleged that Craig had solicited sex from a male officer at the airport, which the senator has denied.

In a "state of intense anxiety" following his arrest, Craig "felt compelled to grasp the lifeline offered to him by the police officer" and plead guilty to the disorderly conduct charge in hopes the matter would not be made public, said the court papers, filed in Hennepin County District Court in Minneapolis, Minn.

The filing said Craig panicked and accepted the plea rather than seeking the advice of an attorney. As a result, Craig's guilty plea was not "knowingly and understandingly made," and the evidence against him is insufficient to support the plea, the papers said.

The allegations resulting from Craig's arrest led to intense public pressure calling on him to resign.
(Troy Maben/Associated Press)

Craig's attorney, William Martin, cited pressure from Craig's hometown newspaper, the Idaho Statesman, which spent months investigating whether Craig engaged in homosexual encounters. Craig has denied such suggestions and accused the newspaper of conducting a "witch hunt."

When his guilty plea became public, Craig came under intense pressure from U.S. Senate Republican leaders and other colleagues in Washington to resign. He initially said he would resign Sept. 30 and later said he was reconsidering that decision. More recently, a spokesman said Craig had dropped virtually all notions of trying to finish his third term unless a court moves quickly to overturn his conviction, which is unlikely before the end of the month.

Patrick Hogan, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Airports Commission, which runs the Minneapolis airport and handled the prosecution of the case, said the prosecutor will oppose Craig's motion.

"We do feel we have a strong case, and he's already made his plea and it's been accepted by the court," Hogan said. "From our standpoint, this is already a done deal. Mr. Craig was arrested and signed a guilty plea, and from our standpoint, this case is already over."

Craig's three-page guilty plea includes acknowledgments that "I understand that the court will not accept a plea of guilty from anyone who claims to be innocent," "I now make no claim that I am innocent," and "I did the following: Engaged in conduct which I knew or should have known tended to arouse alarm or resentment...." Craig signed the bottom of each page.

Craig was sentenced to pay $575 US in fines and fees and was put on unsupervised probation for a year, with a stayed 10-day jail sentence.

A lot of convincing to do

To reverse his guilty plea, Craig would have to convince a judge that there was a "manifest injustice" in the case. Often that includes sentences that were harsher than the one anticipated in the plea bargain, but that didn't happen in Craig's case. Legal experts have said such motions are rarely brought, and when they are, they are rarely successful.

Motions to withdraw a guilty plea are usually heard by the same judge who heard the original case, usually at least two weeks after they're requested, court officials have said.

In exchange for Craig's plea, the prosecutor dropped a gross misdemeanour charge of interference to privacy. If Craig is allowed to withdraw his guilty plea, the prosecutor would have the option to re-file the dropped gross misdemeanour charge, which stemmed from an allegation that Craig peered into the bathroom stall occupied by the undercover police officer.

A conviction on that gross misdemeanour charge could bring a jail sentence of up to a year, although it would be unusual for someone to receive the maximum sentence.

Many Republicans have urged Craig to say for sure that he will resign. That would spare the party an ethics dilemma and the embarrassment of dealing with a colleague who had been stripped of his committee leadership posts. It also would negate the need for a U.S. Senate ethics committee investigation, which GOP leaders had requested.