One of the defendants in the criminal case against Megaupload has been arrested in the United States

Andrus Nõmm was first arrested in 2012 in the Netherlands and has been fighting his extradition ever since.

Nõmm, an Estonian programmer for Megaupload, was taken into custody in Alexandria, Virginia, on Monday and appeared before a judge. Because Nõmm was arrested in the same federal district where the 2012 case against Megaupload and its employees was filed, that could suggest that Nõmm has agreed to take a plea deal with federal prosecutors.

Nõmm’s Virginia-based lawyer, Alan Yamamoto, did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment.

All of the Megaupload defendants (most notably founder Kim Dotcom) have been battling extradition and fighting the government's case from outside US borders. (Ars profiled Dotcom’s extradition efforts last month.)

According to the February 2012 superseding indictment against Nõmm and the other defendants, federal authorities described the Estonian this way:

Andrus Nõmm is a citizen of Estonia and a resident of both Turkey and Estonia. Nõmm is a software programmer and Head of the Development Software Division for MUL. Nõmm is responsible for the technical aspects of Megaclick.com. Nõmm develops new projects, tests code, and provides routine maintenance for the site. Additionally, Nõmm provides web coding assistance to various projects on other Mega Conspiracy websites. Such projects have included testing high definition video on Megavideo.com, installing the thumbnail screen captures for uploaded videos, and transferring still images across the various Mega Conspiracy website platforms. Nõmm has accessed at least one infringing copy of a copyrighted work from a computer associated with the Mega Conspiracy. In calendar year 2010, Nõmm received more than $100,000 from the Mega Conspiracy.

Ira Rothken, Dotcom's lead global counsel, seemed to indicate in a text message sent to Ars that Nõmm's arrest might even help the larger case.

"[Nõmm] was hardly mentioned in the indictment," he wrote. "This is an experimental criminal copyright case targeting dual use technology in the form of cloud storage. Unless the [Department of Justice] is taking advantage of him and his weak financial condition, which is possible, it is hard to fathom which copyrighted works they think Mr. Nõmm criminally infringed. If Mr. Nõmm testifies truthfully including things like the Megaupload copyright agnostic cloud technology and takedown policies, it will likely help the defense."

Rothken added that Nõmm was under strict bail conditions and "had limited financial means," but maintained his own Netherlands-based counsel.

Nõmm is due to be arraigned on Friday.