Swartz Prosecutor Defends Actions
Claims she never would have asked for maximum sentencing
The U.S. attorney for Massachusetts said her office's handling of the prosecution of Internet activist Aaron Swartz was appropriate and rejected claims that her staff drove him to suicide with the threat of decades in prison.
In her first public comments since Mr. Swartz hanged himself last week, Carmen Ortiz said her prosecutors never intended to press for the three-and-a-half decade prison sentence Mr. Swartz could have received for allegedly using the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's computer network to download nearly five million academic-journal articles from a database that charged for access.
She said they told Mr. Swartz's lawyers they would seek a sentence of six months "in a low-security setting" if he pleaded guilty.
Hide Comments (0)
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post commentsMute this user?
Ban this user?
Un-ban this user?
Nuke this user?
Un-nuke this user?
Flag this comment?
Un-flag this comment?