French tourist who scaled the Brooklyn Bridge sentenced to community service cleaning a jail

December 10, 2014 at 11:10AM

NEW YORK — A French tourist will have to spend 240 hours cleaning a Manhattan jail for scaling the Brooklyn Bridge to take photos.

Yonathan Souid (soo-EED') of Esnandes, (EHS'-nahnd), France, got the community service sentence on Tuesday.

The French university student will be assigned to the Manhattan Detention Center.

His lawyer said Souid "prefers cleaning a jail than to actually live in one."

Souid had pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge.

He said it wasn't his intention to hurt anyone. He said he climbed the bridge last month because he has a passion for photography.

In July, two German artists swiped two American flags from the famous span and replaced them with white ones. A month later, a Russian tourist climbed the bridge to take pictures.

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