Panama City, Florida [NewsHerald.com]- The “Girls Gone Wild” defense lawyers said Monday in court filings that the prosecution is relying on outdated law in a “desperate” attempt to salvage its case against Joe Francis.

Francis, 34, is charged with two counts of both using minors in a sexual performance and conspiring to use minors in a sexual performance. He faces up to 40 years in prison if convicted as charged.

The charges stem from a “Girls Gone Wild” cameraman filming two 17-year-old girls performing sex acts with each other in a Panama City Beach motel shower during Spring Break 2003. Francis was in the motel room, but says he didn’t meet the girls, who lied about their ages to the cameraman, until after the filming.

Francis was once charged with more than 40 offenses stemming from video shoots on the beach in 2003, but Circuit Judge Dedee Costello dismissed the majority of the charges after throwing out all the physical evidence in the case gathered under a defective search warrant.

Francis’ lawyers asked earlier this year for the remaining charges to be dismissed because Francis did not know the girls’ ages and the law requires in these offenses that the defendant knowingly filmed underage girls.

Prosecutor Mark Graham responded by saying that the statutes cited fall into a category of offenses that are exempt from the criminal intent requirement of nearly all laws in the state. Graham said there are laws in place to protect children that the Legislature has said don’t require criminal intent.

The motion to dismiss is scheduled to be discussed and decided in a hearing Wednesday.