The law is an ass
...American law doubly so.
What on earth is the point of ordering someone to pay $17M damages, when the damage caused was calculated at $17K? If they were a multi-millionaire, maybe, but ordering someone to pay a fine that can never be paid is just being very, very silly and brings the law into ever more disrepute than it's already in. And still some people wonder why there's opposition in this country to allowing anyone at all to be extradited to the US to face 'justice'?