A honeypot for what? Downloading isn't illegal. It really doesn't affect me if some random publisher knows that x.y.z.0 downloaded their book.
If you are that paranoid about it, use a VPN like Mullvad.
Interesting that the prosecution is also for Wire Fraud and Money Laundering. Is there a story to this that I have missed?
Or is it because ZLib takes donations and that money is used for hosting, etc.
According to the indictment, the operators tried to elicit money/property from authors/publishers. I didn't bother looking up the referenced emails to see what was actually said.