He can only be sentenced to the maximum for a crime that the government can prove; there are laws about those things and the government can't just wing it.
The fact that the US Attorney gave a plea deal in this case suggests to me that either the government didn't have enough evidence to prove every element of a major crime beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury. That and I doubt the government was terribly interested in actually trying the case, with the possibility that this guy's tactics would then be a major story on the nightly news over the course of a trial and might facilitate copycats.

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