MERRITT ISLAND, Fla. -- Two Central Florida boys who used YouTube for a prank that led to battery charges posted an apology on the same video-sharing service Monday as part of their unique punishment.

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VIDEO: See The Apology

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The judge's order to post the video apology comes about a year after the boys committed a prank known as "fire in the hole," according to Local 6 News partner Florida Today.

Jessica Ceponis, 23, leaned out the drive-through window of the Merritt Island Taco Bell last July to hand a carload of teenage boys their soft drinks. Then she turned to get change.

Little did she know that she had armed the boys with the ammunition they needed.

"Fire in the hole!" the boys yelled as they hurled a 32-ounce cup of blue soda and ice at the left side of Ceponis' jaw. They sped off, leaving her dazed.

The teens posted the prank on video-sharing Web site YouTube.com, alongside a number of similar videos that were part of what some have called a growing fad.

The teens are now posting another video on YouTube: an apology that shows them facedown and handcuffed on the hood of a car. The judge, prosecutor and defense attorneys who devised this punishment hope it will serve as a deterrent.

"With a case like this, you can't have a kid walking around with a plaque on his neck in front of a restaurant saying he's sorry," Cape Canaveral attorney Tony Hernandez III, who represents one of two defendants in the case, told Local 6 News partner Florida Today.

"You need to broadcast the apology so that the audience is seeing when they elected to use this technology to broadcast their criminal act, there were consequences," he said.

Police and prosecutors point to the increasing nationwide problem of young people who film violent or lewd acts and cruel pranks and post them online in a bid for fame. "Fire in the hole" is just one example.

The beating of a 12-year-old Brevard girl was posted last year on the photo- and video-sharing site Photobucket.com. This spring, Polk County officials said six girls and two boys filmed the beating of a cheerleader so they could post it online.

Police in New York and Pennsylvania reported a rash of complaints last summer from restaurants about the "fire in the hole" prank, including one in which the drink was laced with hot sauce.

In a statement, YouTube said it doesn't allow the uploading of videos that contain someone getting "hurt, attacked or humiliated," and that it removes those flagged by users.

Parents Not Aware

"Fire in the hole" borrows its name from a military warning shouted before explosives are set off. So far, it has been uncommon in Brevard.

Jo Lynn Nelson, chief of the Brevard State Attorney's Office juvenile division, said she has seen fewer than five cases in the past two years. She said she sees more questionable activity on social-networking site MySpace.com than on YouTube.

"You're finding the kids posing with what appear to be weapons, what appear to be gang symbols and very sexually provocative poses, with alcohol, with drugs, and most of the time, the parents are not aware of this," Nelson said.

Ceponis said that was the case with the teens who randomly targeted her in July.

She first thought the incident was a personal attack, but she soon learned from teen customers that a video of the prank was on YouTube. A teen co-worker e-mailed it to her, and Ceponis used that to track down the boys' MySpace accounts, where the video also was posted.

"They were bragging about what they had done and how funny it was, and their friends were commenting how funny it was," Ceponis said.

Without revealing her identity, she befriended them online, then asked if they were behind the attack.

After she got confirmation, Ceponis used the phone book to track down one boy's mother. The mother provided the names of the other boys involved, she said.

The 16-year-old driver who threw the drink and a 15-year-old who was filming were each charged with two counts of battery and one count of criminal mischief, both misdemeanors.

Laws that protect minors keep their names private.

"It wasn't like a little toss that tapped me," said Ceponis, who works at Checker's but avoids duty at the drive-through window. "I had a bruise on my jaw line for two weeks."

Tactic Questioned

Attorneys involved in the case hope the apology video, which the boys scripted, filmed and edited, serves as an example to others.

The teens also were sentenced to 100 hours each of community service -- three times the amount typically ordered for misdemeanors. And they each must write apology letters and pay $30 in restitution to the restaurant for cleaning expenses.

The charges will be dropped when the terms of the sentences are met.

The plan saves the boys -- both A and B students with no prior records -- from serving time on probation or in a juvenile detention center, said Hernandez, the attorney.

"They just did something they admit was very stupid," he said, echoing a voiceover from the video that admonishes teens to "think before you act" because "your future depends on it," amid audio of jail cell bars clanking shut.

"By doing this video, it gave them many hours of reflection on what they did, instead of forgetting about it and thinking about it only when a probation officer came by," he said.

But Ceponis worries that the new video will lead to more bad behavior.

The boys may have learned their lesson, but "the apology video could throw them into the spotlight, and to some other friends, they're going to just be heroes," she said. "They'll be joking about it in a year or so."

Watch Local 6 News for more on this story.