Anthony,
You did exactly what you should have done.
I personally, would have put my steel toed boot in his thieving ribs a time or two while he was down there as a further reinforcement of the consequenses of negative behavior, and then told him that if he breathed a word of it to ANYONE, I would whip his sorry azz, EACH AND EVERY TIME I LAID EYES ON HIM, FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE!!!!
Furthermore,
Any sorry, low life, scum sucking, bottom feeding excuse for an attorney that would take his case can have his ribs kicked in (or his by God house burned down in the middle of the night) too.
Far too many good men have stood idly by and let that kind of horsecrap go on unchallenged for way too long.
It has gotten so ingrained in peoples minds that they are afraid to stand up for themselves for fear that "Oh I might get sued".
So sue me, they will never see a penny of it this side of their grave, and how they go about getting to that grave will be their choice!
By the way there is a way you can help your ex-friend even at this point.
Tell him that the vast majority of the "saw guys" you know would have given him a lot worse than he got from you, so he needs to mark chainsaws off his list of things to steal!!!
Mike