If his goal is being released from prison, via swaying public opinion towards him to get a presidential pardon - he would do himself a lot more to that goal if he would be willing to let go of the delusion that what he did was not a crime, even if he faked confessing what he did was wrong and illegal, it would go a lot farther towards his cause.

As this article notes, the fact customers got their money back was a happy coincidence. He had no legal right to use customer funds in the way that he did. I thought he'd honestly get more than 25 years.