An Immortal tells you 'The helpfile says it's at my discretion. You were slain just this morning for the exact same thing. Why you thought it would be a good idea to turn to the same behavior again is beyond me.'

Chances are he didn't. I personally believe him because a self-interested person wouldn't want to waste the time to make another character just to have the same punishment. He can't be too short fused if he was okay with the first slay like he says.

He says he was sitting at the keyboard the whole time and occasionally reading helpfiles, probably with the sole intent of establishing that he is at the keyboard to the benefit of the imm (and therefore himself), which seems to jive with the rules excerpt about botting:

Generally speaking, if you the player are still in attendance to respond
appropriately to any incoming stimuli for your character, you're not breaking
any rules. You the player always needs to be in control of the character.

I think he does meet that criteria.

Especially since he is apparently ESL and may have had trouble understanding whatever was first said to him about it, can you see why he would think it's still okay?

What constitutes legal use of triggers and illegal use of a bot is at the
discretion of the immortal staff, so please be aware that we may ask you to
stop if we deem what you are doing inappropriate.

Discretion is generally a good thing because you can't write an all-encompassing rule set and it tends to help enforce the spirit of the rules rather than just the letter. However, it also says you may be asked to stop if an imm determines that what you are doing is wrong. But for him the first line of defense seems to have been a slay instead of a warning, that may also be open to discretion but the other way of doing it is probably much better. I get how this case is blurry since he was actually cheating before.

And I get if someone doesn't like seeing it, I don't like edge farmers either, especially ones that I think are AFK, it bothers me for some reason and I tend to summon and plague stuff next to them if I can (because if they're playing they'll move). I'm actually glad he got slain the first time, I think that without a warning was appropriate, but so did he apparently.

But I think the guy might not have cared much if he weren't mocked for trying to get clarity on what rules he was still breaking.

pray I sit at the keyboard for two hours.
An Immortal tells you 'Stop farming observation experience with triggers.'
An Immortal tells you 'The helpfile says it's at my discretion. You were slain just this morning for the exact same thing. Why you thought it would be a good idea to turn to the same behavior again is beyond me.'

He took two hours to repeat the process correctly according to the helpfile, got slayed, and then mocked for saying something about it.

With regard to gear passing, no, I wouldn't defend him for that. But I would defend him for something that isn't wrong.