 The plea deal required Assange to admit guilt to a single felony count, but also permitted him to return to Australia without any time in an American prison. He was sentenced to the five years he'd already spent behind bars in the UK, fighting extradition to the US on an Espionage Act indictment that could have carried a lengthy prison term in the event of conviction. He was holed up for seven years before that in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.