NEW YORK — The attorney representing Plaxico Burress Monday lashed out at New York District Attorney Robert Morgenthau for suggesting that his office was seeking at least a two-year sentence stemming from an illegal weapons possession case involving the former Giants receiver.

Burress attorney Benjamin Brafman said Morgenthau should not have made any public statements, especially now that a grand jury is considering the case.

Morgenthau said in Monday's New York Post that prosecutors had been negotiating a plea deal in which Burress would receive two years imprisonment, but that Burress would only agree to serve a year.

Burress was charged last November with carrying an unlicensed weapon at a New York nightclub. He suffered a leg wound after the gun accidentally went off.

"We've always taken the position that he's going to have to go to jail, whether by trial or by plea," Morgenthau said.

In a telephone interview Monday, Brafman said: "I think it was highly inappropriate for the district attorney to publicly comment on the status of plea negotiations or to recommend a specific prison sentence in a case where my client has not yet been indicted and where the grand jury is at this very moment considering whether or not to indict."

Asked if he had a gut feeling about how the case would ultimately turn out, Brafman said: "I don't. I don't want to speculate."

Burress, who was released by the Giants in April, has not signed with another team. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has yet to rule on any further sanctions on Burress, who faces a possible league-mandated suspension.