WTP Petition : Remove United States DA from office for overreach in the case of Aaron Swartz

[reorg]

8. the prosecutor actually in charge of the case

appears to be Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen P. Heymann, according to DOJ information:

http://www.justice.gov/usao/ma/news/2011/July/SwartzAaronPR.html

and this article, with some interesting comments from Aaron Swartz' lawyer:

Heymann was looking for "some juicy looking computer crime cases and Aaron's case, sadly for Aaron, fit the bill," Peters said. Heymann, Peters believes, thought the Swartz case "was going to receive press and he was going to be a tough guy and read his name in the newspaper."

Heymann, the deputy chief of the criminal division in the Boston-based U.S. Attorney's office, also headed the computer crimes task force there, a position Peters said "doesn't carry much prestige and respect unless you have computer crimes cases."

...

Peters said Heymann was threatening Swartz with potentially longer prison sentences if Swartz didn't accept his plea deal offers.

"He was very intransigent," Peters said of Heymann. "It was his philosophy that as you got closer to trial the plea offers only got worse. But the offer he was making was so unreasonable that having it get worse didn't concern me much."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/14/aaron-swartz-stephen-heymann_n_2473278.html

Total signatures right now: 24,511