Entering a wiring closet with a lawful excuse is permitted. You genuinely thought it was the door to the bathroom, or smelled smoke.

Entering a wiring closet with lawful intent but not a lawful excuse is trespass. For example someone left a light on and you wanted to turn it off. The property owner can generally have you removed and file a civil case.

Entering a wiring closet with unlawful intent is a crime. For example your MAC address has been blocked from the wireless network and you intend to plug in to avoid that block.

So hopefully it makes sense now. They can't just charge him for breaking into the closet (unless he did property damage), but they can charge him in addition to another crime (and you can argue till your blue in the face if THAT was a crime, I don't have an opinion). Its like the magical "with intent to distribute" if you cut up your drugs into lots of little baggies.

(IANAL, but I did have one explain this stuff to me years ago in relation to an employee termination)

So if he entered a supply closet at the library to borrow a pen, and then he evaded taxes with that pen, he "broke in" even if the library allowed people to borrow pens from that unlocked closet?

Breaking into a supply closet is not a fact that helps establish any element of tax fraud.

So it's "breaking in" if it helps the prosecution's case, by definition.

What a weird system.

"What a weird system."

A little yeah. But check this out. If you steal something, you won't automatically go to jail. Someone has to sue you because of that first. Same thing, I think.

He wasn't charged with breaking & entering. The fact of his "breaking in" to the wiring closet was used to establish his intent and understanding that his actions were unauthorized. It's part of a pattern of facts that established the elements required to charge him with fraud.

Well somehow the press and everyone started reporting that Aaron "broke in" to the closet where the wires were gathered and I figured they were using a legal term of art.

If we can s/broke in/entered/ without changing the meaning, then this "breaking" use sounds like pure spin.

It's spin (the closet was quite unmaintained given its dual use as a homeless shelter), but it's also legally meaningful when talking about the network access he obtained in there.