Carmen Ortiz's Husband Fires Back at Wife's Critics
Update Jan. 16, 10:50 a.m.: It appears Dolan has deleted his Twitter account altogether, after his tweets defending his wife, U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz spawned rebuttals and media attention. (That’d be us.)
Original: U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz hasn’t yet commented on the death of Aaron Swartz, the internet activist whom her office was prosecuting for downloading millions of files from the website JSTOR, so the fact that her husband appears to be firing back at critics on Twitter is attracting some notice.
Swartz’s family laid some blame for his suicide on the “prosecutorial overreach” of Ortiz’s office, which charged him with crimes that could bring up to 35 years in prison and millions of dollars in fines. Prosecutors offered Swartz a plea deal that would bring only four to six months in prison, but his lawyers rejected it. A Twitter account apparently operated by Ortiz’s husband,former CFO at IBM Tom Dolan, has been pointing this out to several critics of his wife.
In response to this Tweet, linking out to the family’s statement:
Official Statement from the family and partner of Aaron Swartzrememberaaronsw.tumblr.com/post/403722080…
— Mitch Kapor (@mkapor) January 13, 2013
Dolan responded:
@mkapor Truly incredible that in their own son’s obit they blame others for his death and make no mention of the 6-month offer. — Tom Dolan (@tomjdolan) January 15, 2013
And in response to this Tweet from Think Progress:
Aaron Swartz faced a longer prison term than murderers, slave dealers and bank robbers thkpr.gs/VVXt8t #icymi — ThinkProgress (@thinkprogress) January 14, 2013
Dolan wrote:
@thinkprogress Completely false.Aaron Swartz was offered a plea deal of 6 months.6 months is not 35 years.
— Tom Dolan (@tomjdolan) January 15, 2013
Dolan’s public defense has been greeted in turn with tweets from Swartz’s supporters, arguing that even the plea deal constitutes overreach. With a petition calling for the removal from office of his wife reaching 27,000 signatures, which now requires a response from the White House, you can see why Ortiz’s husband might feel pressure to answer criticism. Still, it’s odd that Dolan is responding when Ortiz herself has yet to.
