Almost certainly. ShadowCrew was much bigger than just one person. The Secret Service claims 4,000 members, but the real number was probably several hundred. Without the help of a well-established member (Gonzalez was actually a founder), it would have been much harder for the government to crack this fraud ring.

Okay, so let's assume that's true, despite the fact that it's an extremely dubious claim considering the magnitude of the operations Gonzalez was running. Even then, your original claim was "what kind of message does a stiff sentence send", but then you come back with this as if it's better to send a message that the secret service are a bunch of suckers who you can play til the end and still get off hook. Crime wouldn't be down for very long with that kind of message, and don't even get me started about the consequences of congress hearing that message.