Stephen Heymann is the assistant US attorney who made it his mission to see Aaron Swartz sent to prison for violating terms of service by downloading scientific papers with an automatic script, rather than individually, by hand. Heymann spent a lot of time working with MIT on this — Aaron used MIT's network to allegedly violate the terms of service — and in his efforts to get MIT to stay involved in the face of public criticism for their cooperation, he compared Aaron to a rapist who blames his victim. Aaron's lawyers have asked the DoJ to investigate Heymann for breaches of professional standards.
Stephen Heymann, an assistant U.S. attorney for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts, told a lawyer for MIT on Aug. 9, 2012 that it is disturbing to him “whenever a defendant ‘systematically revictimized’ the victim, and that was what Swartz was doing by dragging MIT through hearings and a trial,” according to a memorandum recounted in MIT’s report on its conduct in the Swartz case. Heymann “analogized attacking MIT’s conduct in the case to attacking a rape victim based on sleeping with other men,” the report states.
Prosecutor Stephen Heymann Compared Aaron Swartz To Rapist
(Image: MIT drinking song, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from ilamont's photostream)
