Curti, from my 21 years of scammer hunting and prosecuting these sorry punks, I can confirm what your fellow sharks know about the courts...
If you were to take reimbursement payment from Brian/Mike now before going to court, there is a high likelyhood the prosecutors and judge will either dismiss the case or let him off with a handslap! He will walk out the courtroom laughing his ass off at you, and go right back to scam his next victim!
YOU and your loyal fellow sharks have gone to great lengths to bring this jerk to justice, DO NOT throw all that hard work away for nothing, and let him get the last laugh!
After conviction, as part of sentence disposition against him, the courts WILL impose full monetary restitution, so you ARE going to get your money back anyway, one way or another, even if you have to sue civilly.
With the criminal conviction, your are guaranteed civil restition against any assets Brian/Mike, his wife and his family's estate have!
If you drop this now, your chances to succeed in recouping all your losses drops to less than half!
Go for it Curti... it's too late for him to get off scott free now!