We do know what sentence she would've recommended. She and Heymann were pushing for 35 years. More than many killers and rapists get, by decades at that. The prosecution even compared him to a rapist.
And let's not forget why he turned down the plea deal: HE WASN'T GUILTY OF ANYTHING. Jstor and MIT both didn't want a prosecution, and "MIT’s site license for JSTOR [allowed] for “unlimited” use of the JSTOR library." The prosecution claimed he was going to release the downloaded materials publically, which might have constituted copyright infringement, but he had not actually done so at the time of his voluntary surrender.
Thanks for the correction. I don’t know about federal court, but in (my) state court the judges really don’t care what the prosecutor wants. They go by the guidelines, the sentencing report, and how big of an asshole the defendant is. In my state Swartz would have gotten the usual - two years probation, restitution, no contact with victims.
Anyone do federal criminal work and can guess how the presentence report for Swartz might have read?
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/stephen-heymann-aaron-swartz_...
https://theintercept.com/2021/02/15/marty-walsh-aaron-swartz...
And let's not forget why he turned down the plea deal: HE WASN'T GUILTY OF ANYTHING. Jstor and MIT both didn't want a prosecution, and "MIT’s site license for JSTOR [allowed] for “unlimited” use of the JSTOR library." The prosecution claimed he was going to release the downloaded materials publically, which might have constituted copyright infringement, but he had not actually done so at the time of his voluntary surrender.