I've exhausted my options, and honestly, it's not worth it to pursue it anymore. I've now written off the locomotive as a loss. I just hope that this thread shows up on Google so that if anyone ever googles his name in the future, they can what he has done.
This is what I have done:
- Filed a mail fraud complaint with the US Postal Inspection Service. I did not receive a response.
- Contacted the San Diego Police Department who told me that they consider this to be a civil case, and therefore would not be able to help, but referred me to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). I filed a report there, although unless he's ripping off multiple people for thousands of dollars, I don't think they'll do anything.
I looked into legal options. The best I can do would be to file a case in small claims court in San Diego, but I live in Boston, MA, and traveling there to sue him would cost more than what the locomotive is worth.
It's a shame really, because he did a very nice work on past projects for other people, and I thought that was enough to trust him.