Of course they will threaten him with it but did he really think, or did his lawyers really tell him he would serve long years of hard time?

I wonder if he ever considered the fact that even if he did serve time, he would always be seen as some kind of folk hero who would have been welcomed with open arms by all his peers upon release. It would have been a situation of him, all his peers and everyone he respects against the system, which imho is not that bad a situation. Still a much better situation than for example the one Assange find himself in.