tptacek didn't appear to question Aaron facing 35 years in jail, he was simply stating that actually "spending" that time in jail is unlikely.
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-...