Richard O’Dwyer to avoid extradition

The long standing fight to keep the creator of streaming website TVShack, Richard O'Dwyer, from being extradited to the US has come to fruition, with the man managing to avoid trial overseas, with perhaps a small fine as his only recompense.

O'Dwyer will still need to visit the US as part of the deal, but no jail time will be served and he'll be able to return afterwards of his own volition. To achieve this he had to sign a  “deferred prosecution” agreement according to the Guardian, which outlined his travel to the US and a small compensation sum that must be paid.

Despite having been initially arrested back in 2010, it's taken this long to secure an outcome for Mr O'Dwyer. While his extradition to the US was agreed upon by home secretary Theresa May – the same home secretary that blocked the extradition of hacker Gary McKinnon – over a quarter million people signed a petition demanding that he be tried in the UK, since the crimes were committed on British soil. A GoFundMe effort also raised over £12,000 in the last month in an effort to help pay for further defence for O'Dwyer.

Until this most recent announcement, it was thought that should he face trial overseas, O'Dwyer would face a huge fine and potentially up to ten years in jail.

KitGuru Says: Alls well that ends well, but doesn't this seem like even more a colossal waste of time? The authorities made such a big case for this and in the end settled for a small fine?

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