British-born U.S. technology entrepreneur John McAfee died on Wednesday by suicide in a Barcelona prison after the Spanish high court authorized his extradition to the United States on tax evasion charges, his lawyer told Reuters.
Software pioneer and wanted fugitive John McAfee died by suicide in a Spanish prison cell on Wednesday, after the country's high court authorized his extradition to the United States on charges of tax-evasion and fraud.
That's according to his lawyer, who said the software mogul died by hanging because he could not stand any more time in jail, adding: "This is the result of a cruel system that had no reason to keep this man in jail for so long." Known for his eccentric behavior and bizarre videos, the 75-year-old entrepreneur who sold his McAfee anti-virus software company to Intel in 2011, had been indicted in Tennessee on tax evasion charges.
He was also charged in a cryptocurrency fraud case in New York.
McAfee was arrested in Barcelona as he was about to board a flight to Istanbul in October.
In a tweet posted June 10, McAfee told his 1 million Twitter followers: "There is much sorrow in prison, disguised as hostility." McAfee, who ran for president of the United States as a libertarian in 2016 and said in 2018 that he had fathered at least 47 children, lived in Belize for several years but fled after police sought him for questioning in the 2012 murder of a neighbor.
McAfee said in 2019 that he had not paid U.S. income taxes for eight years for ideological reasons.
The same year, he left the U.S. to avoid trial, largely living on a megayacht with his wife, Janice, who he said he met when she solicited him as a prostitute while he was on the run.
Janice McAfee said in a Twitter post on Sunday: "...the U.S. authorities are determined to have John die in prison to make an example of him for speaking out against the corruption within their government agencies... There is no hope of him ever having a fair trial in America."
