Yeah, Swartz's liability has been wildly misreported. He faced nothing resembling 35 years, as the prosecutors themselves acknowledged during the dispute. His own lawyer believed he was unlikely to face custodial time even if convicted given the guidelines for the charges. This has been discussed ad nauseam on HN and I'll spare you a repeat of it; the search bar will avail.
But that's exactly the coercion, laid plain. It /doesn't matter/ that the prosecutors don't believe they'll get the full sentence. They want to paint as dire a picture as possible to get the defendant to take the plea.
No, I don't think you're following what I'm saying. The prosecutors were explicit about the sentence they were actually seeking, and that sentence was itself far outside what the guidelines suggest he would have gotten. The DOJ did not in fact threaten Swartz with 35 years in prison.
