Legal Question in Criminal Law in New York

Re: forcible touching and public lewdness?

'Public Lewdness' is, if memory serves, a disturbance of the public order and is punishable as an A Misdemeanor. I have not looked this up, but I think the jail time is one year.

But people rarely go to jail for mis-demeanors.

Forcible touching is also an A Mis-demeanor, but of a very different type. This is usually used for a plea bargain with a criminal. The actions would be charged as a felony and then plea bargained down to this. The plea bargain would be available to 1st time offenders or when the DA has a very weak case.