One of the reasons so many people believe Swartz faced 35 years in prison is that any attempt to correct the record is met by responses like this. Ironically, you're doing the work of the prosecutors for them: this is the whole reason they quote these outlandish and implausible sentencing possibilities in their press releases.

By "responses like this" do you mean any form of criticism? What I am calling out is your purely positive statement that lacks any sort of normative judgement. It's the type of thing which helps normalize the status quo, regardless of whether the cudgel is 35 or 7 years.

Here is a comment that makes a similar point to yours, but in a constructive manner: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49379992