Aaron Swartz Plea Deal Reportedly Rejected Days Before His Death
Aaron Swartz Plea Deal Reportedly Rejected Days Before His Death

                                
            Aaron Swartz, the 26-year-old programmer and digital luminary who took his own life Friday, did so only days after his lawyers unsuccessfully attempted to strike a plea deal with prosecutors over a computer fraud case, according to a report. Swartz, whose trial was expected to begin in the spring, was facing a maximum sentence of 35 years in jail and up to $1 million in fines.Swartz's lawyer, Elliot Peters, made the second of two attempts at striking a plea deal with Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Heymann as recently as last Wednesday, according to a Monday report from the Wall Street Journal. Peters told the Journal that no compromise was reached, as Heymann stuck to the government's earlier position: Swartz would have to plead guilty to every charge and face at least some time behind bars -- possibly six months but up to seven years, according to a "person familiar with the matter."Swartz, an ardent believer in the principle of free information, was charged in July of 2011 with computer fraud and other crimes after sneaking into a Massachusetts Institute of Technology network closet and using the school's connection to download millions of academic and research files from JSTOR without paying for them. Swartz was not a student at MIT.Swartz did not leave behind an explanation for his suicide, but friends and loved ones have identified several possible reasons, including government prosecutors' desire to punish Swartz to the fullest extent of the law.Lawrence Lessig, longtime friend of Swartz, wrote in a blog post that, "From the beginning, the government worked as hard as it could to characterize what Aaron did in the most extreme and absurd way." Swartz's family, too, blamed prosectors' overreach, saying in a statement that Swartz was facing "an exceptionally harsh array of charges, carrying potentially over 30 years in prison, to punish an alleged crime that had no victims."According to Swartz's girlfriend, Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, the impending case was to be a financial and social burden for Swartz, as he would need to seek help for legal fees while some of his friends were being subpoenaed."It was too hard for him to ask for the help and make that part of his life go public," Stinebrickner-Kauffman told the Journal. "One of the things he felt most difficult to fathom was asking people for money."
Suicide is, however, rarely the result of only one cause. Swartz's previous battles with mental illness and depression were at points severe. He wrote about his "depressed mood" publicly in 2007. Reddit co-founder and colleague Alexis Ohanian told the Journal that one of Swartz's blog posts on the subject was so alarming it convinced him to alert the police, while others who have written about Swartz's death, including Cory Doctorow, have speculated his depression played some role in his suicide.
                    
                    