I'm sorry there is no way to sum this up in 100 characters or less

I joined a start up company 3 months ago, was put in charge as a creative director, and had employees under me. 6 months prior to my employment the company was shaky, had bad client relationships etc. Since I was put in charge in about a month their was a definite improvement all around. I added some people who I knew would help etc. This information may seem arbitrary but it is important.

Last month me and my time finished really strong, we brought in clients, and partners that were going to work with our company to invent new software that was going to make us a lot of money. I even got a "good job" and a meeting was set to discuss a raise or more budget to the company. This meeting never happened.

Then last Tuesday at the end of the day, the owner called us in and told us that effective immediately the business is closed, because "he doesn't want to do it anymore" We were all pretty upset that we had no warning, no severance pay, nothing. Just a check for that Monday and Tuesday and a "good bye" after we had dedicated to turning the company around and seemed to have succeeded in making in head in the right direction. I asked "what about your clients" and he said "fuck them" so I asked if I could take the clients and start my own business at home. He said sure, but I got nothing in writing. He seemed to rush us out the door.

The next day all of a sudden he called my friend and said "I just realized I need people to finish these projects, can I give you all $25,000 and you guys can get it done at home? Which seemed like an empty promise and attempt to get free work out of us, so my friend said no.

Then apparently, and admittedly on the phone, the owner broke into my friends personal email account, and read his messages to his wife about his recent lay off. He used the words "untrustworthy" but didn't slander him (even in a private message)

So then this guy began calling me and my friend threatening to kill us and our wives and families. Consistently called my friend a "queer" and that he was going to rape him. Then he said that we were withholding logins, passwords, ftp information etc. But we had no intention of withholding anything, in fact, we didn't have time to give him anything due to the nature of his firing. But instead, the day after my life had been turned upside down, I spent time to go through by memory all the logins and passwords and sent them to him, even called to make sure he got them, and told him not to contact me anymore. He responded by saying not to threaten him. Then the next day, he texted me: "How's your day going pal? ;) Check your gmail account." basically to be smug and rub it in my face. I never did anything for the guy except hard work and dedicate my life to his business. In my email account was a "cease and desist letter" (uncertified mind you) from a debtcollection lawyer demanding that I release all information I have to the company. Which I had already did, and my friend did. We had nothing to give him at this point. He then texted me "shut the fuck up and I won't move forward" with this nonsensical, laughable "legal" email.

I wrote back to the lawyer:
"1. None of us were "terminated." He "closed the business" and let us all go at the end of the day. I didn't even have time to give him passwords or logins
2. I gave him all the information I had, but meanwhile ALL OF THE INFORMATION IS STORED ON THE COMPUTERS IN HIS OFFICE. I have nothing that I'm withholding, I've taken my own time to work with them and give them what they wanted, and even contacted (Vice President) and (Owner) to make sure they got what they wanted. I have made (Vice President) admin of all accounts and told him that they need to delete my account because I don't have the power to. I even told them if I happened to have forgotten one (because I had to do it from memory) to contact me and I'll hand that over as well.
3. I have proof that I didn't delete anything and that I relinquished all content and control to (Vice President) and (Owner)
4. A cease and desist needs to come certified and notarized for it to be official, you as a lawyer (albeit a debt lawyer) should know this.
5. I, as well as the people he let go upon his business closing, have had our emails broken into, have been continually harassed and physically threatened by him for the last two days while we are attempting to put our lives together that he tried to destroy.
I have done nothing but bend over backwards for this guy, but he persists to make it his hobby to annoy us. I hope this satisfies as a discontinuation of any legal pursuit. We want nothing more than to just move on from this person who obviously suffers from anger and mental issues. "

But the frightening part is; recently my friend and I who worked their accidentally found out our bosses real last name, then googled it, and it turns out that he and his family (who worked there as well) has a history of mortgage frauds, money laundering, offshore gambling, racketeering and who's father and grandfather were in the mafia. He had just gotten out of prison from stealing 14 million dollars from people who were losing their homes in New York. This struck a nerve with us as it seems that he was still running illegal mortgage companies, offering high interest loans in the same building as us, and we grew suspicious that our business may have been a money laundering scheme. This was all sort of conjecture, but there was definitely something weird about all of it. But then after basically coming the closest to turning a profit this past month and then getting the business shut down, it actually seems more suspicious.

Anyway, this has just happened in the last two days. and even after they sent me a fake cease and desist, they still keep constantly calling, texting and writing me emails to give them everything. I keep telling them that I've given them everything to my knowledge, and that all that information is stored on their computers regardless.

So I have the text messages and emails proving that I was communicating to him that I was relinquishing control. I was sitting in the room with my friend when he called to tell him he was going to murder us and our families, but it was not recorded unfortunately. I have text messages of him calling me an idiot etc. and my friend has emails etc of this too. However, it seems he knows when to push the button and when to "hide" because it's only when we would answer the phone that he would crazily threaten that "we will never find jobs again" and "your whore wife is going to have her neck sliced"

So... yeah... advice?