HOLLYWOOD - Lawyers for Jeffrey Jones are quietly negotiating terms for a plea bargain in the child pornography case against the actor, prosecutors told Reuters Tuesday.Jones, 55, was charged last November with a felony count of employing a minor for purposes of taking sexually explicit photos and a misdemeanor charge of possessing child pornography. He allegedly hired a 14-year-old boy to pose for sexually explicit photographs between September 2000 and May 2002.
To avoid a trial, the Jones' case went to an "early disposition court" to see if a deal could be worked out. Deputy District Attorney Deborah Knaan told Reuters the case could be settled at a May 12 hearing.
"We are definitely hoping to have a disposition," Knaan said. "We are waiting for some reports from the defense. Once we get that information we are going to read it and sit down with the defense and talk turkey."
Jones' attorney Leonard Levine called the plea bargaining "amicable" and told Reuters, "Whatever occurred here is an aberration in his life and it will never happen again," adding that Jones would go to trial if satisfactory terms were not reached.
"The final decision (about a plea agreement) hasn't been made yet, that is what we are exploring," he said.
If convicted, Jones, best known for his suspicious school principal in Ferris Bueller's Day Off and films including Beetlejuice and Amadeus, faces up to three years in prison and the prospect of registering as a sex offender for life, Reuters reports.