Lawyers in the case of Jeffrey Lee Parson, the teen hacker who pleaded guilty to creating 2003's MSBlast.b worm, are arguing over jail time prior to a Friday sentencing hearing.

Parson is scheduled to stand before U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman Friday in Seattle court on one count of intentionally causing damage to a protected computer. MSBlast.b, which Parson said he built with a copy of the original worm, caused some $1.2 million in damages and infected nearly 50,000 systems, the government has alleged.

The Hopkin, Minn. native, now 19, pleaded guilty last August, when a plea bargaining agreement was struck specifying jail time from 18 to 37 months. According to reports in Seattle and Minneapolis newspapers, however, court documents reveal that Parson's public defenders are planning to ask Pechman to modify that sentence to six months in prison, six months at a community treatment center, and six months of detention, with three years of supervision on the back end.

"It's a statement about how seriously law enforcement takes these kinds of crimes," Assistant U.S. Attorney Annette Hayes was quoted in the Seattle Times Wednesday.

The U.S. Attorney's Office also said it would pull out of the plea if the judge gave Parson the lesser sentence, a move which would probably send the case to trial.

In a pre-sentence document, the U.S. Attorney also recommended that Parson pay $622,500 in restitution to Microsoft for damages, as well as several hundred dollars to each of 12 individuals involved in the case.