District Attorney David McDade has handed out some 35 copies of a video of teenagers having sex at a party.

The video shows a 2003 New Year’s Eve Party at a hotel room. On it, Genarlow Wilson (who was then 17) can be seen receiving oral sex from a 15-year-old girl and having intercourse with a 17-year-old girl. McDade says Georgia’s open-records law leaves him no choice but to release the footage because it was evidence in one of the state’s most turbulent cases. The tape helped put Wilson (now 21 years old) behind bars, where he is serving a mandatory 10-year sentence on a charge of aggravated child molestation. Although the oral sex with the 15-year-old was consensual, it was a felony under Georgia law at the time. The law has since been changed. Wilson was acquitted of raping the 17-year-old. McDade’s actions have opened him up to accusations that he is vindictively misusing his authority to keep Wilson behind bars — and worse, distributing child pornography.