If you were salary and not benefitting from it, there's literally no chance you would have gone to jail. This was the equivalent of panicking about running a yellow light in terms of overreaction. The only thing you had to do was write an email, cc your personal email, and tell your boss you think the punches are messed up and that they reflect more than you worked. Your boss would tell you not to worry about it and you're done.

The person you're talking to literally spoke to lawyers and followed their advice. If you know better, maybe you should work in government law.

Your faith in the criminal justice system amuses me.

Abuses happen. But they are the exception, not the rule. There's no need to be so cynical and mocking about it.

I love when people on the internet think they know better than lawyers about a situation they are barely familiar with.

If I call a lawyer and ask them whether I should jaywalk or not the lawyer will advise me not to jaywalk.