It seems Aaron expected that, by complying with JSTOR's request to destroy the downloads, the issue would go away. I wonder whether this was a sort of handshake

It seems Aaron expected that, by complying with JSTOR's request to destroy the downloads, the issue would go away. I wonder whether this was a sort of handshake agreement between Swartz lawyer and JSTOR the prosecutor choose to ignore. If so, a better lawyer could have advised to use the JSTOR downloads as leverage for a better plea.