I can't help it if you have decided to ignore what Theymos wrote on the forums. He knew the business was illegal, and he knew the jig would be up when it was brought to the authorities.
Illegal implies it was against the law, and presently we still do not know if GLBSE was against the law in any jurisdiction. It would appear Nefario was in the process of attempting to make GLBSE a sort of AML-certified legal exchange which he didn't have approval to do by his shareholders. To date, the legality of GLBSE is still under question, even if criminal charges by the SEC are eventually filed against Nefario. An SEC investigation by itself does not make an exchange illegal, indeed they may not even have jurisdiction over GLBSE. MPOE even has a post on here about how he would argue that Bitcoin securities cannot be regulated by the SEC:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/the-reasons-why-bitcoin-securities-cant-be-regulated-by-the-sec-116835Again, I don't see the logic in the accusations; theymos (et al) were very straightforward with what was being sold and why they were selling it.
The problem is that with the bits and pieces of mostly lies / not entirely true statements the participants make, it's outright impossible to clarify anything. That's the role of a prosecutor IRL, get each of them into a separate little room, beat the shit out of them (metaphorically, of course, which is like a simile) and then paste the real story together.
Again, you're talking about the legality here, not the morality.
A scammer tag does not seem to be warranted at this time, perhaps later. To wit, and as others have indicated, no one affected by the sale of these shares has come forward asking for one and we have no evidence that these individuals had prior knowledge of what exactly Nefario was doing.
At this point stories differ [...] so much speculation that the whole story is impossible to understand.
Thank you for the summation Reeses. It sounds like a good summary of the events.
The two parts that seem to be in conflict in it are:
"Nefario goes rogue" and "despite the fact that it was a partnership"
If he was taking steps that were not in agreement, then the partnership was dissolved and the remaining parties aren't likely guilty of anything (in a legal context, anyway). I also agree highly with your assessment that anyone having anything to do with GLBSE would be better served to remain quiet on the issue, anyway.
At this point it seems pre-emptive to argue for a scammer tag when we presently don't know the legalities surrounding the situation or who knew what and when. This forum has never given scammer tags out indiscriminately. Whenever I've argued for one I've always had to provide overwhelming evidence, and I'd be downright upset if circumstantial evidence alone were sufficient enough for one. At least BadBear and Maged would understand my concerns with this.
Of course, this is all aside from the legalities of the situation, which I may actually agree with the detractors on.