Somehow the "well Jimmy did it too and he didn't get in trouble!" defense isn't a strong one.

Not a defense for his actions, but meant as a way to illustrate how disproportionate the response was for what he actually did. I'm working off memory here, so maybe I'm wrong, but from what he was really be pursued for should have been a civil matter at worst.

In the case of _pranks at MIT_, which has a rich history of outrageous pranks, I'd hoped it would have affected their reaction to it, much as one would hope that students wouldn't get arrested for breaking an entering if they did it to assemble a Volkswagen in someone's office.

Crucial to note is that Aaron _wasn't_ an MIT student. Most of those "pranks" were students. Aaron was trespassing, though MIT decided they did not want him to be prosecuted.