One day last June, Paul and I head down the long, empty hallways of the Central East Correctional Centre in Lindsay, Ontario, to visit his son. “I always get the creeps when I walk through here alone,” Paul tells me.

Whether guilty or innocent, Matt certainly had made many questionable moves — exposing a teenager to drugs and alcohol, approaching the Russians, skipping bail, turning his thumb drives and email passwords over to the authorities. But however inept he was, his supporters believe he was snared in the same government war on hacktivists that sent Chelsea Manning to prison and Edward Snowden into exile. “Matt DeHart’s case is not about some kiddie porn charge in Tennessee, but because of information that he became aware of when he hosted the Shell server,” says Radack. “That’s part of a larger narrative that’s been going on.” And, she adds, “it’s not the first time the government has drummed up child porn allegations with regards to a whistleblowers. The easiest way to alienate someone is to name them in the same sentence as something to do with child porn.”

Kniss is no longer with the department in Tennessee; he is in Wyoming, where he now works for the police department. The DeHarts believe that he was sent out to pasture here after his questionable actions in the case — a theory that Kniss laughs off when I run it by him. Though he acknowledges that he changed the first names in the chat logs “to protect the identity of the victims,” the only cover-up, he insists, is coming from Matt himself. “It’s his way of trying to gather support for himself,” says Kniss, adding that more evidence will come out at trial. “This case has always been a child sexual predator investigation.” Citing his 13 years of investigating such cases, the detective is convinced that Matt is guilty. “There’s no doubt in my mind,” Kniss tells me.

The DeHarts were hoping that the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada would grant Matt asylum as well as protected status, which would put pressure on the U.S. government to drop the case. The decision, which came on Feb. 5 of this year, confirmed some of Matt’s claims: The IRB found no “credible and trustworthy evidence” that Matt was guilty of enticing or transmitting child pornography. It also concluded that there are “significant differences” between the chat logs submitted by Kniss in court and the ones later obtained by the DeHarts from AOL. Kniss, it was determined, had typed up his own edited version of the logs, and had testified that he was unable to obtain the originals from AOL. “Given that the grand jury indictment relied solely on the affidavit of Detective Kniss and without evidence of the conflicting AOL chat logs,” the IRB concluded, “the panel places little weight on its conclusions.”

Nevertheless, the IRB denied Matt’s asylum request, stating that the United States “has a fair and independent judicial process” that can resolve his case. It also rejected Matt’s plea to return his thumb drives.

A few weeks later, on the morning of March 1, Matt was deported back to the U.S. The CBSA took him to the border crossing at Fort Erie, New York, where he was transferred into the custody of two FBI agents. Any day now, he will end up in a federal pretrial detention in the Federal Middle District of Tennessee, likely in one of four county jails in either Kentucky or Tennessee. Last November, the court issued a new indictment against him. In addition to the previous charges for production and transportation of child pornography, Matt now faces another charge of production of child pornography, as well as one for failing to appear at the detention hearing that was scheduled the day he and his parents fled to Canada. According to Matt’s attorney, Ekeland, the additional child pornography charge doesn’t appear to be based on any new information. In total, he faces a maximum of 80 years in prison.

The whereabouts of the thumb drives that the CBSA had detained are currently unknown, though Ekeland thinks they are with “presumably, the FBI,” he says. Matt insists he sent copies of the drives to a contact in the U.K., but would not reveal the person’s name. The DeHarts and Matt’s attorneys can’t confirm who, if anyone, might have received them. Leann, however, suggests that the folder of files Matt had shown her are still online, but that she does not have the means to get it. “It’s still out there,” she says.

Paul and Leann were also denied asylum, and are being deported as well — required to leave Canada by April. They’ve chosen to cross back over the Peace Bridge on April Fool’s Day. “Both symbolic,” says Paul. They’re not sure where they’ll go — perhaps back to Indiana or somewhere close to where Matt will be held.

Leann, for one, feels bitter and hopeless. “I don’t want to be an American anymore,” she says. “I think Matt will go somewhere in prison for a long time.” Ekeland intends to sue the federal government for violating Matt’s constitutional rights during his detention and interrogation by the FBI. “They have a lot to answer for,” Ekeland tells me, “and we fully intend to make them answer.”

As our visit with Matt comes to an end, I step aside to give Paul and Matt some time alone. After chatting quietly for a few minutes, they lower their heads in prayer. Then Paul stands up and gives Matt a salute, which his son returns. On the way out, I ask Paul the meaning behind the gesture. “It’s like they used to do with the POWs,” he says. “What helped them through it was that they had hope and dignity. They had dignity because they were part of a military unit. And they had hope that America would rescue them.”