John McAfee, Software Pioneer, Found Dead In A Spanish Prison Cell
American software pioneer John McAfee, 75, was found dead on Wednesday in a prison cell in Barcelona, according to McAfee's lawyer, Nishay Sanan.
"I am saddened to hear of the events and my prayers go out to his wife Janice," Sanan said in a statement. "John was and will always be remembered as a fighter. He tried to love this country but the U.S. Government made his existence impossible. They tried to erase him but they failed."
Just hours earlier, a court in Spain had approved the extradition of McAfee to the U.S., where he was set to stand trial on federal tax evasion charges.
An eccentric millionaire known widely for his eponymous antivirus software, McAfee was arrested in October 2020, for failing to file tax returns from 2014 to 2018 in Tennessee.
McAfee had bragged about not paying taxes the previous year in a tweet.
In a separate investigation, the Security and Exchange Commission sued McAfee for a "pump and dump scheme" in which he allegedly made $23 million in undisclosed compensation by recommending cryptocurrencies on his Twitter page.
"McAfee's recommendations were materially false and misleading," according to the SEC's suit, also from October 2020.
Federal authorities additionally filed a civil case against McAfee for the same actions.
Sanan, his lawyer, told NPR he intended to fight all the charges.
It was not his first brush with the law. In 2012, McAfee was arrested in Guatemala, where he was charged with entering the country illegally. He had been on a highly publicized flight from his home in Belize since the murder of his neighbor.
In 2015, McAfee announced a third-party White House bid with his own party: the Cyber Party.
CeCe Craig, McAfee's former house manager in Woodland Park, Colo., lived on McAfee's property for years in the early-2000s.
"I got the best of John McAfee. He was really into his yoga retreats. He loved playing the grand piano. We hiked around a lot on his land," she told NPR. "I learned a lot from him. When I lived with him, he was adamantly against drugs and alcohol to focus on his yoga," she said.
"He was a nerd. That's how I always saw him." [Copyright 2021 NPR]
