It didn't help that the people trying to shed light on the severity of the situation were met with comments like http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4529716
> If the feds get their way you'll know exactly where to find him for the next 35 years.
I'm asking if people actually knew facts, not some tin-foil hat speculation (even if the tin-foil hat was right on the money).
See for example another comment from him at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4529809
Edit:
There was nothing tinfoil about it. The indictment was publicly available, and a cursory search of news.google.com also brings up articles like this one
http://techland.time.com/2011/07/19/reddit-co-founder-aaron-...