From the start it has been one of the most annoying criminal cases, and now it's ending as irritatingly as it began. Canadian prosecutors dropped assault charges against Black Eyed Peas manager Liborio Molina after he apologized to Perez Hilton.

The contretemps began back in June after Molina punched Hilton outside the MuchMusic Video Awards in Toronto. Hilton had been a persistent annoyed of the band and apparently bugged them one step too many. Hilton immediately followed up his punching by twittering about it, asking his fans to call the Toronto police, ("I was assaulted by Will.I.Am of the Black Eyed Peas and his security guards. I am bleeding. Please, I need to file a police report. No joke") and then posting a sobbing video telling of his punching online.

The assault provoked a flood of non-sympathy towards Hilton from the world's celebrity community.

Well, today the court case reached its conclusion, going out with as whiny a note as it began. Outside the courthouse in Toronto Molina's lawyer read his legally mandated statement of contrition saying, " 'I apologize for what I did on June 22 of 2009, even though you engaged in highly offensive comments, including a homophobic slur to my clients, I acknowledge that these kinds of issues should not be resolved through a physical response,"'

Hilton then responsed through his attorney quibbling with the apology before grudgingly accepting it. "Although accepting the fact that he shouldn't resort to violence, he attempted to say that there was a precipitating cause," Hilton's lawyer, Brian Greenspan, said afterwards. "A sincere apology is a sincere apology."

And so all live on to annoy another day, while the record stands that in Canada apparently you can punch Perez Hilton and perhaps not go to prison.