Facing 100 years so that he'll waive his constitutional right to a trial (undoubtedly before jury entirely incompetent in the matter) and accept a mere 10 years in a plea bargain.
He's not facing 100 years for god's sake.It's ironic seeing you complain about juries being incompetent when you're showing off such ignorance of the legal system.
I think it's been shown that jury trials typically have much larger penalties than plea bargains.
It's like in a developing country, where you can bribe the policeman to "make it go away". The only difference seems to be, in the US the police don't benefit from the lack of process, and tax payers have to fund more prisons.
That is if it gets to a jury trial. If he's smart, he'll plea bargain, give up some of his homies and take a ten year stint in a federal institution somewhere. If he can afford a decent attorney, he might even get a few charges dropped.
Just as an FYI, the feds pile on indictments as a way to gain leverage. Since the federal government doesn't like hackers much, when they finally catch one, they're going to squeeze him until he gives up names or enough information to catch other Anons.
Look what they were able to get out of Xavier Monsegur.
haven't you been following the Aaron Swartz case at all? it is precisely this common, state-sponsored miscarriage of justice that people are protesting.