By the way, the stat you mention counts consensual arrangements as wage theft, probably the large majority of it (e.g. hiring illegal immigrants for under the minimum wage). Calling that "theft" is a rhetorical move, much like libertarians calling taxation "theft": it borrows the moral weight of stealing for something that's legally and morally quite different. If the stat had been calculated from asking workers, "does your employer owe you money that they refuse to pay?", I suspect the number would drop dramatically.

Gotta keep the poors in line.

To be clear, you're claiming that wrongdoing by one party justifies wrongdoing by another, and your enabling of the latter because you're ideologically aligned with it?

I'd also be interested to know what the crime they were trying to get a lead on was. If it's another case of minor tagging then I can empathize more with the concerns about the prosecution, but if it's something more dire then frankly using judicial leverage strikes me as entirely appropriate.