Edit: and now appearing to have royally messed up a deal he was acting as escrow for that appears with result in a loss of funds.
We've found the identity of one of the scammers involved with that, and he doesn't want to get charged/rep ruined/e.t.c, so he will be repaying the lost BTC. 5+ BTC has been recovered already, and he's buying more BTC AFAIK. Messed up, maybe, though it was in the agreement that funds are forwarded every 24 hours, but the important thing is that the problem is being solved.
Ill believe it when everything is repaid. Although this will not change the fact that the deal was not severely botched by all three of the escrows.
The above does not resolve the extortion problem that lauda likes to extort people for money that is not owed to him/does not have any reasonable claim to.