Washington, D.C. ? Sen. Larry Craig sought to undo his guilty plea in an airport sex sting on Monday, claiming that he admitted to the charge in a panic to avoid triggering a story about his sexuality in his hometown newspaper.

Craig had denied to editors at the Idaho Statesman that he was gay just weeks before his June 11 arrest in the bathroom of the Minneapolis airport. The paper didn’t run a story, but Craig thought his arrest would change that.

Craig’s attorneys wrote that “faced with the pressure of an aggressive interrogation and the consequences of public embarrassment, Senator Craig panicked and chose to plead to a crime he did not commit.”

A spokesman for the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport said that the airport’s prosecutors intend to fight Craig’s attempts to withdraw his plea. They considered it a final judgment when Craig pleaded guilty and paid a $575 fine, said airport spokesman Patrick Hogan.