A young person near the beginning of their career got sentenced to 13 federal crimes, 50 years of imprisonment and one million dollars in fines, for downloading some PDFs of scientific articles.
It's not like someone asked him to delete the PDFs and he killed himself in protest. His life was ruined to make an example out of him.
FWIW, I actually have a close friend who ended up in North Kern for a couple years because of a plea deal fiasco. For most of us who never directly interact with the criminal courts, navigating such curcumstances is complelty bonkers and stressful, as I'm sure it was for Swartz.
Add to that a young man who might have had some depression issues (I’m not sure) and you have a heartbreaking tragedy.
From the Wikipedia:
Days before Swartz's funeral, Lawrence Lessig eulogized his friend and sometime-client in an essay, "Prosecutor as Bully." He decried the disproportionality of Swartz's prosecution and said, "The question this government needs to answer is why it was so necessary that Aaron Swartz be labeled a 'felon'. For in the 18 months of negotiations, that was what he was not willing to accept."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz
It’s heartbreaking even years on.