Before I fully respond to this, I have a question relating to motive. In this situation, should the good things that Lauda has done for the forum & community be a factor when determining reasonable doubt over whether or not this was an extortion attempt to bring someone supposedly shady out into the open -or- an extortion attempt for some sort of financial gain? Again, I don't really agree with either, but the latter is much worse IMO.
I'll be honest with you, I don't agree that Lauda has done very much to benefit the community. It is my opinion that Lauda has been trying to gain additional power, is power hungry, and is attempting profit personally from his power. I acknowledge that this does not help my case, but that is okay because it is the truth.
To answer your question more broadly, yes I would give someone who I believed to have helped the community in the past more of a benefit of the doubt. I also would be willing to argue a lesser "punishment" for this kind of person to a certain degree, although I would say that the punishment that Lauda has received is not appropriate for someone who has greatly helped the community (again, I don't think Lauda meets that criteria).
I don't think the fact that Lauda sent a demand for payment from zeroaxl is in dispute. It is my understanding that it is not disputed that Lauda sent a message along the lines of "you need to send me BTC or else..." and this kind of message makes any benefit of the doubt given to be disregarded as this would meet the criteria of an extortion attempt.
I would also question how exactly Lauda's activity might have brought someone shady into the open. If my memory serves me correctly, zeroaxl had told me via PM that he was accused of a very wide range of shady behavior, from tax evasion to the hacking of bitfinex. I don't think this fact has been disputed, but I also don't think it has been out in the open in a way so that it could be disputed. I would say that if this is true, it would remove credibility that Lauda was trying to "bring light to shady behavior"
Also, I'm not sure your example is very compelling for me. Personally, I would first tell Lauda I unfortunately don't own 2BTC - as sad as that is - so attempting to extort me is pointless as I couldn't send it anyway (donations are accepted!
). Even if I did have it, I'm too strong minded (or maybe hard headed?) that I would never pay anything for something I didn't do. There are other things I would do in this situation, but I'm not going to give away how I would defend myself. Besides, my wife trusts me and would certainly believe my word over some damn online cat!
Well you are lucky to be in that kind of marriage/relationship with your wife. I think it is fair to acknowledge that not everyone benefits from your situation, and that a good number of people would be inclined to pay, even if they have done nothing wrong.
Maybe a better example would be Lauda showing you evidence that causes you to believe that he can cause an in-person IRS audit, and he demands $100 worth of BTC, or else he will cause you to get an in-person IRS audit. Even if you have filed/paid your taxes properly your whole life, the time spent taking off work, and the stress of an audit is probably worth more than $100. If I were to receive that kind of extortion demand, I would not pay, and if anyone asked me for my opinion, I would tell them not to pay, however I think that a lot of people would probably pay this kind of extortion demand (sadly). I guess my point is more that there are reasons why someone might pay an extortion payment even if they have done nothing morally wrong (let alone illegal).
edit: here is a quote from a PM that I received
They just brought up "shady" things of mine and never were able to prove that I apparently hacked bitfinex, ran serveral ponzies and even run a botnet, because I didn't do any of that. We decided to talk about it in private.
Feel free to bring anything up against lauda though, I honestly don't think he deserves the staff badge.
