He should not be charged with evidence tampering. He received complaints via mail. If I had been in his shoes, I would also have decided to stop file sharing.
Isn’t that what the RIAA wanted him to do? Stop file sharing?
He did what any normal human would do. It would only be destruction of evidence if the computer had been sezied and entered into evidence in a court of law. It was not seized, and no order was given him that he should not erase his hard drive.
The RIAA does NOT have a case according to my father, who is a Federal judge. He laughed when I told him about this, and said the RIAA is fighting a losing battle and is only going to cause people to download even more music to get back at the RIAA and it’s Gestapo tactics.