This is part of why account trading is strongly discouraged. Usually we won't even consider this excuse, since only admins can properly investigate it, it takes too much time, it's often too ambiguous, and you really shouldn't be trading accounts anyway. But especially for very veteran members, we do occasionally look into these claims and reconsider the matter based on them. This isn't the first case like this: there are a surprising number of notable members who originally bought their accounts.

After looking at the logs, I find it likely that this story is true, so it wasn't him personally who did the plagiarism. Trading accounts is strongly discouraged, but not against the rules. Therefore, the ban is removed.

This action may be controversial, and now I'll probably have everyone appealing based on "I bought the account from my neighbor!" (Which I'll nearly always reject...) But even though it is largely bill gator's fault, I just find it on the whole too unfair to treat him as though he did something when I'm looking at evidence showing that he didn't.