>Investigators at first believed Mr. Martin might be the Shadow Brokers, who had posted their first announcement of their auction of N.S.A. hacking tools a half-hour after Mr. Martin blocked the two Kaspersky workers on Twitter. They found the same N.S.A. exploits in Mr. Martin’s vast collection of stolen material.

>But the Shadow Brokers continued to post taunting manifestoes and stolen software for months after Mr. Martin was jailed.

The truth is sometimes stranger than fiction.

Also, I wouldn't doubt that the guy really was just an eccentric hoarder, Russian intelligence knew about it, and set about framing him via the Kaspersky/Twitter angle as a means to sew confusion as cover for their Shadow Brokers heist.

Has he ever actually admitted the Twitter activity was him? It's not a stretch to imagine his home network being compromised just for that purpose. Forensically undetectable frame jobs are very possible if it's a nation state actor doing the framing.

If USG really believed his intention was the sale of secrets, there would be no plea deal, and he'd probably be rotting in Florence ADX for the rest of his life.