Mods did the right thing by speeding up the process.
In this case, he has proven himself completely guilty by blocking all access to the product for which we paid a lifetime license, so we would not collect more evidence against him. Also, him providing "settlement" with the buyers can be seen as an admission of guilt.
Remember another thing he said, since it is a digital product, he can't offer refunds. So no matter how much time you gave him, he would have probably got stuck with that position and by the time we all have woken up to the reality, all the money would be definitely gone.
You see, he said there are some folks who supported him, despite the situation, but even those folks now are not guaranteed any service, because his whole reputation has been destroyed and he has no further incentive to develop it any more, thus diminishing the value even for his "supporters".
In the end, both "supporters" and those who want refunds, have lost.
If you gave him more time to see the rage that's going on in here and let him explain more BS excuses, he would've had more time to withdraw the cash.
Now that his account was blocked pretty much immediately, we have more chances of recovery.
It is indeed sad that he spent so much time coding the plugin (at least the other part, besides stolen), in addition, he's got very good design skills and his website looked very professional. That, for just couple thousand bucks, is not worth it.
All the reputation for the past three years lost is a really big loss.