I don't think it would be unethical, but I was sort of "calling his bluff".  Misery seems like too nice a person to actually do this.  The main point I was trying to make clear to CCM was that he has more liability in this matter than misery does.  Reporting misery to the police would be like committing murder and snitching on your getaway driver.

Possession of a bitcoin address is like knowing the numbers to access a swiss bank account.  I think a good analogy for this situation is CCM got misery's help to open a bank.  A number of people made deposits, which were kept in swiss bank accounts.  The bank's physical location got closed from mismanagement and lack of company funds.  CCM was grossly negligent in not keeping backups of the information to access these accounts, and as the owner of the company, he is responsible for them.  Misery is a teller, who, being a thorough person kept his own personal records about how to access these accounts, even though he was not paid for the last ~month of his work (his making a record is going above-and-beyond). Now this disenfranchised teller is the only person who is able to recover these funds, because of management's mistakes.  CCM is ridiculous to be threatening police action against him for this information: Misery has no legal obligation to store or provide it to CCM.  Any return of the information to access these funds is completely an act of good faith.  CCM is now liable for the full amount of deposits, and is frantically trying to push the blame off on his teller to save his own ass from the mess he got himself into.