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Also accepted by the court, was a statement from the fraudster Brooke Bartlett. His attempt to visit Dotcom in prison was raised at the High Court as a reason to decline bail. Judge Dawson accepted a statement from Bartlett that the visit was his own idea — and not one of Dotcom's.

Along with the statement from a fraudster, there was evidence from an impeccable referee. Megaupload’s former accountant Bonnie Lam had flown to New Zealand from Hong Kong to testify that Dotcom was broke. There was no money left, anywhere. And, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, Dotcom was freed. He was under electronic bail — effectively house arrest — and banned from using the internet.

“I just want to go home,” he said, outside court.

Shortly after Dotcom’s release on bail, he spoke with landlord Richard Bradley and changed the rental on the mansion to quarterly. Lentino put up $250,000 to cover the first three months. “So he made the payment which allowed me to keep this home, otherwise we would have lost our family home. It would already be gone.”

Lentino, who later became a major funder and supporter of the new Mega business, didn’t do so without carefully considering the outcome. “He read the indictment and the indictment alone was enough for him to understand this whole case was crap. He has never blinked once.”

Dotcom credits Lentino for stepping forward. “It’s the US government after all, coming here and saying this guy has to die. Who is going to stand up for the guy? It’s pretty unlikely for stuff like this to happen. Everyone else is running for the hills or the bunkers.

“He was immediately there to help,” said Dotcom. “A lot of people who made a lot of money over the years with the advice I have given them were all gone. And here’s this guy from New Zealand who I’ve met two or three times who became our saviour.”

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