Antivirus pioneer John McAfee dies behind bars in suspected suicide
John McAfee dead at 75: Eccentric antivirus software pioneer ‘kills himself’ in his jail cell after Spanish court approved his extradition to the US on tax evasion charges
- McAfee was found dead in a Barcelona prison on Wednesday, officials said
- Investigators say that all the initial signs point to his death being a suicide
- It came just hours after a Spanish court approved McAfee’s extradition to the US
- He faced tax-related charges that could have landed him in prison for 30 years
- McAfee had been traveling world with wife Janice fleeing alleged ‘persecution’
- He made millions from the sale of his McAfee antivirus software company
- But his personality allegedly changed around 2010 during sojourn in Belize
- Allegations emerged that he killed his neighbor, which he always denied
- McAfee unsuccessfully sought the Libertarian nomination for president in 2020
John McAfee, the pioneer creator of popular computer antivirus software, has died behind bars in a Spanish prison. He was 75.
McAfee was found dead on Wednesday afternoon in his cell in Brians 2 Prison in Barcelona, with officials saying that the early investigation points to a suicide, the Catalan justice department said.
It came just hours after a Spanish court approved McAfee’s extradition to the United States, where he is wanted on tax-related criminal charges that carry a prison sentence of up to 30 years.
McAfee had been held in Spanish prison since his arrest in October, when the U.S. Justice Department announced charges that McAfee and his supporters insisted were politically motivated.
His death follows a wild, controversial life filled with legal issues and foreign adventures, including allegations that McAfee murdered his American neighbor in Belize, which was never proven in criminal court.
John McAfee appears via videoconference during his extradition hearing at Audiencia Nacional court, in Madrid, Spain earlier this month. He has died behind bars at 75
A cell at the Brians 2 Prison in Barcelona is seen in a file photo. McAfee was found dead in his cell on Wednesday afternoon in a suspected suicide
John and wife Janice McAfee are seen in a spoof video from 2013, in which they poke fun at his wild-man image and love of firearms. He was reportedly an aficionado of bath salts
Final Tweet: In one of his final tweets, presumably dictated to his wife from behind bars, McAfee said ‘I have nothing. Yet, I regret nothing.’
Soon after his arrest last year, McAfee’s Twitter account posted a dark hint suggesting that if he died in an alleged suicide, a conspiracy would be to blame.
‘I am content in here. I have friends. The food is good. All is well. Know that if I hang myself, a la Epstein, it will be no fault of mine,’ he tweeted referring to persistent theories that sex predator Jeffrey Epstein did not take his own life, as authorities ruled.
In one of his final tweets, presumably dictated to his wife from behind bars and posted on June 16, McAfee denied having any hidden assets, claiming the fortune he made in an alleged cryptocurrency scam had ‘evaporated.’
‘I have nothing. Yet, I regret nothing,’ the tweet stated.
McAfee had praised conditions at the prison where he was being held in Spain, though his Twitter account sometimes complained about the food.
‘Life in Spanish prisons is like the Hilton compared to the abject surrealism and dehumanization of American prisons. Here I am treated as a human being instead of a number,’ McAfee said in a letter written to his wife, according to El Diario.
For years, McAfee had been living in self-imposed exile, fleeing what he claimed was a vast web of corruption and conspiracy in the U.S.
In January 2019, McAfee fled his heavily fortified Tennessee compound with wife Janice, 38, claiming a grand jury was preparing to indict him on tax-related charges and taking to the high seas to escape.
Touring the Caribbean on his ‘Freedom Boat’ also allowed McAfee to avoid a $25million judgement in a wrongful death lawsuit over the 2012 murder of his neighbor in Belize, Gregory Viant Faull.
McAfee was never criminally charged with the murder and he always strenuously denied it. He continued to trot the globe until his arrest in Spain last fall.
Soon after his arrest last year, McAfee’s Twitter account posted a dark hint suggesting that if he died in an alleged suicide, a conspiracy would be to blame
McAfee is seen aboard his ‘Freedom Boat’ in the Caribbean in 2019, fleeing a pending indictment on tax-related charges in the U.S.
McAfee is seen with wife Janice. They freely admit that Janice was working as a prostitute in Miami Beach when McAfee hired her for a night, before rescuing her from a violent pimp and falling madly in love. They were married for eight years before his death
McAfee had praised conditions at the prison where he was being held in Spain (above), though his Twitter account sometimes complained about the food
Last year, Tennessee prosecutors charged McAfee with evading taxes after failing to report income made from promoting cryptocurrencies while he did consultancy work, as well as income from speaking engagements and selling the rights to his life story for a documentary.
The charges referred to the three fiscal years from 2016 to 2018, according to the Spanish court’s ruling on Wednesday.
The entrepreneur was arrested last October at Barcelona’s international airport. A judge ordered at that time that McAfee should be held in jail while awaiting the outcome of a hearing on extradition.
McAfee’s wife Janice said in a statement on Sunday that he had been targeted by prosecutors ‘for speaking out against the corruption within their government agencies.’
‘These eight months John has spent in prison in Spain have been especially hard on his overall health both mentally and physically, as well as financially, but he is undeterred from continuing to speak truth to power,’ she added.
In a hearing held via videolink earlier this month, McAfee also argued that the charges against him were politically motivated and said he would spend the rest of his life in prison if he was returned to the U.S.
McAfee linked the charges filed by the Internal Revenue Service to his failed bid to run as a Libertarian Party candidate in the 2020 U.S. presidential election, a second such attempt.
McAfee is seen in Cuba in 2019. Shortly before his death, Spain approved his extradition to the US on tax charges, which he argued were politically motivated
‘In late 2018, I announced I would run again and I also announced I would target the IRS and its corruption and two months later the IRS filed charged against me,’ he told the Spanish High Court during the first hearing of his extradition trial.
‘I believe the charges are politically motivated.’
McAfee added that that given his age, almost 76, he would spend the rest of his life in jail if he were to be convicted in the United States.
‘I am hoping that the Spanish court will see the injustice of this,’ he said, adding ‘the United States wants to use me as an example.’
In Washington, the IRS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Spanish prosecutor, Carlos Bautista, dismissed the claim of political motivations, insisting the Libertarian Party rarely gains more than 1 percent of votes in U.S. elections.
‘He is a tax rebel, nothing else. A millionaire who doesn’t want to pay taxes,’ Bautista said. ‘He will benefit from all guarantees of due process.’
John McAfee’s brilliant rise as a computer programmer and his disturbing spiral into drug use, conspiracy theories, and allegations of murder
John David McAfee was born on Septermber 18, 1945 on a U.S. Army base in Goucestershire, United Kingdom, the son of an American serviceman father and a British mother.
When he was 15, his father, an abusive alcoholic, committed suicide with a firearm.
McAfee graduated from Roanoake College with a degree in mathematics in 1967, and went on to work for NASA, Xerox and Lockheed before founding McAfee Associates in 1987.
His antivirus software proved to be a stunning business success, making him millions. McAfee resigned from the company in 1994, and sold his remaining stake two years after McAfee Associates went public.
Computer analyst John McAfee holding stethoscope to IBM type computer in 1989, illustrating computer viruses which his software is able to eradicate
McAfee led an eccentric life after he sold his stake in the antivirus software company named after him in the early 1990s, with his net worth peaking at around $100 million before he lost much of it in the 2007 Great Recession.
His personality changed abruptly around 2010 while living in Belize, when he reportedly began producing and consuming large quantities of bath salts, a powerful psychoactive drug that was legal in that country.
He reinvented himself as a Bitcoin expert, debuting a cryptocurrency trading portal call ‘McAfee Magic’.
McAfee met his wife Janice in 2013, a day after McAfee was deported from Guatemala while fleeing Belize.
Janice was working as a prostitute in Miami Beach when McAfee hired her for a night, before rescuing her from a violent pimp and falling madly in love, the couple have openly revealed.
The pair became inseparable over eight years of marriage, with Janice fleeing the U.S. with him in 2019 and serving as his presidential campaign’s director of media relations.
McAfee met his wife Janice in 2013, a day after McAfee was deported from Guatemala while fleeing Belize
The couple took to the seas aboard his ‘Freedom Boat’ and cruised the Caribbean as McAfee issued a series of bizarre pronouncement and threats to expose ‘corrupt’ US officials he claimed were unjustly pursuing him.
In one incident, McAfee revealed that one of his teleconference-enabled ‘body doubles’, Jay Pizzle, had disappeared while in route to deliver a keynote speech for him in Barcelona
‘No-one’s heard from him. I’m not a conspiricy [sic] theorist, but I don’t believe in co-incidence. I have no clue. But would the U.S. go that far to silence me?’ McAfee said.
‘We spoke with Jay the night before he was supposed to leave. All was fine and he was excited to go on the cruise,’ tweeted McAfee in an update
‘His flight was to leave the following morning. We know only that he did not show up for his flight and he was not seen at the airport,’ said McAfee.
McAfee responded with wide-ranging threats to release information he said would expose corruption at the highest levels of the CIA, as well as other U.S. authorities.
‘If I’m arrested or disappear, 31+ terrabytes of incriminating data will be released to the press,’ McAfee said in one recent tweet.
McAfee also issued a video statement vowing to release a web page detailing corruption within the U.S. government.
‘There is corruption that goes far deeper, however, and that is the corruption of those who reach for more power, in order to be more corrupt,’ he said.
In July 2019, McAfee was released from detention in the Dominican Republic after he and five others were suspected of traveling on a yacht carrying high-caliber weapons, ammunition and military-style gear, officials on the Caribbean island said at the time.
Developing story, more to follow.
