Soon after the domain was registered in Hong Kong, the now-defunct Megaupload.com grew into one of the world's most popular file-sharing sites. At its peak, the site engaged nearly 50 million users a day and took up around four percent of the world's Internet traffic. Users uploaded nearly 12 billion files overall.

But the infamy of the site's rise is only matched by the infamy of its fall. In January 2012, US authorities closed down Megaupload.com and the network related to it. The feds arrested seven people and froze $50 million in assets. The FBI claims that the site not only failed to take down illegal material, Megaupload also helped to spread it. Perhaps it was simply a case of brazen arrogance. When the authorities finally raided founder Kim Dotcom's large villa in New Zealand, they found a number of luxury cars (Lamborghini, Maserati, Rolls Royce) with the license plates "God," "Mafia," "Hacker," "Evil," and "Police."

In total, seven men associated with the site were arrested and indicted on 13 charges (including copyright infringement and money laundering). Dotcom remains notably free and has been continually fighting in New Zealand against his extradition to the USA. Others were not as lucky.

Take for instance self-taught programmer Andrus Nõmm. The now 37-year-old grew up in a small Estonian town called Jõhvi. When he built up the Mega advertising platform Megaclick and the video hosting service Megavideo, Nõmm earned as much as $10,000 a month—more than he could've ever imagined as a child. But when US authorities came after the entire Megaupload operation, suddenly he found himself in the middle of the world's most sensational criminal copyright infringement scandal.

The legal saga dragged on for three years. In 2012, Nõmm was first arrested by authorities in the Netherlands and placed under house arrest. Like Dotcom, Nõmm next spent a significant amount of time fighting extradition. But eventually in 2015, he voluntarily traveled to the US and was arrested in Virginia. Nõmm pleaded guilty to felony copyright infringement and was sentenced to a year and a day in a US federal prison. The US Attorney General's office called the conviction, "a significant step forward in the largest criminal copyright case in US history.” In court documents, Nõmm acknowledged the financial harm to copyright holders "exceeded $400 million."

While in prison, Nõmm's teenage son and Turkish wife lived through all of this drama back in their home in Izmir, Turkey. Today, Nõmm is back with them. He' a free man looking to set his life back on track. And recently, he agreed to share his side of the story—from Megaupload glory through prison time—with Estonian journalist Toivo Tänavsuu.

The following Q&A is made of selected excerpts from Tänavsuu's interview, which was originally published in the Estonian weekly Eesti Ekspress this past April. It has been translated into English and lighted edited for clarity. It's reprinted here with permission from Tänavsuu.

Tänavsuu: Describe your life in the Netherlands up to February 2015.

Nõmm: I lived on Katendrecht Peninsula in Rotterdam. At first I had to wear a GPS device and stay within 500 meters of my home. The supermarket was 550 meters away. I had to walk to the edge of this area and wait there until someone bought my goods and brought them to me. After a while, they relaxed the restrictions and the area in which I was allowed to move increased until finally the GPS device was removed altogether. I was allowed to move around everywhere in the Netherlands, except anywhere within 50 kilometers of the border. When my son was visiting and we wanted to go to an amusement park in a town near the border, I had to get a special permit.

I wasn’t allowed to go to the airport either. Since most trains run through Schiphol, I had to drive the long way around to get from Rotterdam to Amsterdam.

Why did you initially fight against your extradition?

First of all, I couldn’t understand why I was being hunted down. The Dutch court papers didn’t include at least half of the accusations which had been in the media. For example, we do not have a single section in the law in Europe about racketeering, which in the USA automatically leads to a 25-year sentence. Secondly, I did not know what was going to happen to me if I went to the USA. The maximum possible penalty for all 13 counts would have been 55 years in prison.

Were you able to work?

The Netherlands wanted me to work. I didn’t have any money because my bank accounts in Turkey and Hong Kong had been seized and the US government confiscated about $40,000 from them. The FBI put me on the black list, which meant that I couldn’t transfer my earnings to a bank. I had to let them transfer my salary to a friend's account.

The Americans wanted to use you against Kim Dotcom. What were the FBI’s proposals?

They tried to get in contact with me, but when my lawyer asked why, they didn’t reply.

I had three lawyers in total. The first, appointed by the state, didn’t even notify me that the FBI were trying to get in contact. The second was famous but turned out to be a complete fake—taking money from clients, but not doing much at all and now facing trial. My last lawyer came through Megaupload and was really good. But Kim never paid the man a single cent. All Kim ever cared about was how to promote himself on Twitter. He has never given me any real help.

In February 2015, you voluntarily decided to fly to the US. Why?

The US prosecutors kept insisting that I should talk to them. Finally, we met with a couple of FBI representatives at my lawyer's office in Amsterdam. The Americans confirmed that they had strong evidence against me, and that I didn’t stand a chance. They claimed that I had either uploaded or downloaded some sort of illegal movie in Megaupload. Since I myself programmed the video converter system for the site, I downloaded and uploaded files constantly without watching them.

They wanted me to confess to knowing that Megaupload was earning big money from illegal movies. This I read only later on the Internet. I didn’t deal with financial issues in the company.

What options did you have?

I had the chance to fight for another 10 years and .00001 percent probability of winning in court, to live week-to-week worried about how to support my family. They would’ve extradited me sooner or later and I would’ve received a tough punishment in the USA: I most likely would have spent 5-10 years behind bars.

"I had the chance to fight for another 10 years and .00001 percent probability of winning in court, to live week-to-week worried about how to support my family. They would’ve extradited me sooner or later."

I chose a shortened procedure. I pleaded guilty to felony copyright infringement and made an agreement with the prosecutors to sit in prison for a year. All the bigger accusations, such as money laundering, dropped away since I wasn’t the owner of the company. I also had to sign my name to all of the evidence that had already been collected—for example, to the fact that Megaupload ignored complaints from time to time and did not remove illegal content fast enough. If anyone had any doubts about a file, Kim always calmed them down and said there was nothing to worry about. I had to be made an example of as a warning to all IT people who were intending to work in similar companies.

Deep down, did you feel guilty of anything?

I still think I shouldn’t have been on the list of defendants.

At the beginning, the Dutch Attorney-General was involved, then less and less important prosecutors until my case landed in the lap of some random intern. That shows how important the issue really was. It turned out that I was the only defendant in the last 29 years to voluntarily go from the Netherlands to the USA. I was asked to come to the police station 24 hours earlier. There I was shoved in the punishment cell with all the lowlifes. Since I’d been playing computer games and talking to my friends from dusk till dawn for two or three days in a row, I was so tired that I immediately fell asleep.