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Uh... from what I've read, a severely depressed guy with a fear of prison committed suicide when it came home to him that, whatever happened, he was going to go there. After beggaring himself before even getting to court.
I don't think he suicided simply as a grand gesture to prove a point.
He probably committed the crime without a clue what would be thrown at him (big mistake: if you can't do the time, etc...).
edited 17th Jan '13 3:13:57 PM by Euodiachloris
Not ways I don't like, really idiotic ways that hurt people.
You're forgetting he did hurt people with his stunt. He took down the servers, remember? He did deserve to be made a point of. You know how you protest? Pickets. You don't do it by easily hurting others or committing serious crimes, and then not following through to hopefully fix the one you don't like. Nothing of what he did was admirable at all. It was just plain out stupid.
Exactly. I agree he should not have been hounded, but that's really the only thing I thought he didn't deserve. And... that's it.
The suicide actually meant nothing. I doubt it had anything to do with proving a point. His felonious acts were done to prove a point, but his failure to follow through in any possible way made the point worthless.
The problem is, a martyr only works if could have a good effect. At best, he might've made it so other companies can't hound people, but he would not have changed the copyright laws, the actual goal. This is why it wasn't worth it in the end for anyone.
edited 17th Jan '13 3:16:24 PM by Irene
Shadow?This isn't Europe. This is America. And one count of Fraud, agreed. Multiple accounts is another story, respectively. And no, multiple crimes deserves more punishment if they're separate. You should not get off easy for doing it multiple times here.
Most of it was also with the copyright laws, I might note. Which he really didn't prove them bad either since the people who could access them legally were hurt for the purpose of proving a point(that he failed to follow through with, and this actually does matter as a note).
20 years due to 2 counts of regular Fraud, and one count of Wire Fraud is actually pretty reasonable. That's maximum. Since he did not severely hurt someone, it would've been far less anyway, which means this whole "too much" is really a poor argument right now.
edited 17th Jan '13 3:23:21 PM by Irene
Shadow?Irene, can you not see the disconnect in 'the prosecutor offered a plea bargain of six months' and your insistence that thirty-five years is a deserved sentence?
If the value of the articles was as claimed: six months is much too low a sentence (even in Europe). If the prosecutor offered six months: they either didn't believe the value was as claimed...
..or, by offering a six months sentence and then saying 'but if it goes to trial we'll ask for thirty five years, which is what you should get' they were using bribery. Plain and simple. The defendant was being bribed to produce a guilty plea.
(I believe public servants offering bribes is also illegal?)
edited 17th Jan '13 3:47:30 PM by Bluesqueak
It ain't over 'till the ring hits the lava.![]()
Back on topic now (I support the notion that we should have a Legal Problems thread). One point I'd like to say is we're also talking about a person who's got a mental illness. Was he capable of understanding that 35 years is a maximum time only and very unlikely to happen? Is he capable of thinking rationally? Did prosecutor make sure that he understands the situation? Is the system capable of handling people with a mental illness without pushing them off the edge? It is not normal for somebody to just off themselves like this (or else there's a BIG PROBLEM here). Something had to have gone wrong here.
edited 17th Jan '13 3:46:18 PM by IraTheSquire
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I'm not talking about that bribe, and it isn't actually illegal here, just kind of dickish since it never ends out that way.
Honestly, all of that combined with the copyright laws might go up to 20 at best.(that's giving it too much credit even) That's rather reasonable. I was always operating on the idea he won't be hit for the full brunt of it no matter what.
The only issue was the copyright law is a bit too much time-wise. I don't disagree with the high amount of time for Fraud(which isn't actually much, considering how a lot of Fraud can ruin a life, of which this thankfully didn't). I don't agree the copyright law should've been 20 years, yes. However, that doesn't mean it wasn't punishworthy, though. I think people are assuming I want him to get the maximum time. Except I never said that once. Just that he deserved a good amount of time punishment-wise. With all of that combined, minimum maybe 4 years, with 1 year per crime committed? That's kind of reasonable since it didn't hurt anyone too much, and actually may be too small.
Honestly, probably yes. Why else would somewhere between 6 months and maybe 20 years(max for all of it combined) really cause one to kill himself? The hounding probably played as much of a role here. And I guess I should clarify I never wanted to see him dead, before anyone gets that idea. I wanted to see him punished for a decent amount of time(minimum 4 years) for what he pulled. That's really my "nice idea", anyway.
edited 17th Jan '13 3:51:14 PM by Irene
Shadow?
The suicide has to be at least partly due to mental illness; people are surviving the prospect of a twenty year sentence practically every day.
It would be interesting to find out if the prosecution had been formally informed that the defendant had a mental health problem.
It ain't over 'till the ring hits the lava.Well, here's another Techdirt post
related to this fiasco/scandal to feed this thread.
What did I say about the law? I mean, when you have it so that anyone can be a felon if you put enough effort (read: no effort), you should really reform it.
edited 17th Jan '13 6:02:14 PM by Psyga315
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Assuming they knew about this at all. They may not have known till after he killed himself. That information was not given. And if so, isn't that the reason why such a short sentence was suggested?
So I really don't find them bad for trying to give him a much shorter sentence than normal. Of course, we don't know who all knows, though.
Shadow?As I said, I'm not blaming anyone (not the people anyway) without further evidence. The people involved might not know, which will also be a part of the problem of the system not being able to deal with mentally-ill people.
At the end of the day, the result is that somebody killed himself, and the only thing that I know is that should not have happened. Something went wrong along the way and it needs to be fixed.
Also, if you happen to see it in the library.
Apparently Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) is staging an investigation into Ortiz, and a White House petition to fire Ortiz has already long since passed the threshold.

Which still would've been far less if he was charged of everything else and lost. If he did win the Trial, he'd get nothing.
But he took the worst way out anyway. Which is the actual case here.
Sorry, but I do think he deserved jail time for this. Because he used a really stupid method to prove a point. So he deserved the punishment for it.
Shadow?