Sounds like a very frustrating experience. And think about how much time he's stolen from you. You're having to relive the experience and negative feelings every time you post another response on this thread. I didn't read all of it so I'm not sure if you actually went through pursuing legal action against someone in another state but reading about the situation almost makes me think maybe you should just cut your losses and forget about it. Leave one final friendly message for him saying you understand, it's ok, just send it when you can, kill him with kindness and then don't follow up again. Once he catches up with his backlog or whatever, he's going to send it back to you because that is the option that makes the most sense for everyone. He obviously didn't do all this because he needed another knife. So it's either the trashcan, collect dust and clutter the house, or give it back to the owner.
You said it yourself that lots of other people got their knives back even if it took forever. So, more than likely he's going to send it back to you unless you've given him a reason to give it to the landfill instead. Which is highly unlikely. It sounds like he's used to dealing with people who are pissed off at him for late work so it's probably not the first time he's been in this situation with an irate customer.
I think this would be the better option because think about how much productivity he's robbed from you already. The stress and time you've spent on these posts have probably long surpassed the dollar value of the knife and at the of the day the effort spent here doesn't seem like it's going to pay off. You can't force people to do things and it sounds like he knows what's going on and still has chosen to not call you back so you're just wasting your energy. And to think about you pursuing legal action or filing some type of criminal complaint makes me cringe just thinking about the amount of stress, time and money you're going to waste.
If you truly believe in your heart that this person has malicious intentions then the more time and money you waste, he's winning even more. It's not like you're going to be able to convince an attorney to handle this for you for a percentage of the winnings. Just the initial consultation to describe the situation will cost more than the knife is worth. If you're that angry, just spend a few hundred bucks to fly to his city, rent a car and then show up at his door. If he doesn't answer, take a good book and wait outside his house, he will eventually come out. And if he knows you flew there, there's no way in person he's going to continue to ignore you. You might be able to pull that crap on the internet but no one's going to treat you like that in person. So unless you're prepared to fly there, you should just leave a final amicable voicemail or message and then act as if you're just another victim of a natural disaster and a tornado took the knife away.
The best thing for you to do now is to accept the fact that the knife is gone as a result of your own mistake and decisions. Consider it a life lesson. I'll bet the next time you hire anyone for anything, you'll do a better job of vetting the person or company. I've been a licensed general and electrical contractor since 2006, believe me, I've had my share of dealing with the craziest people ever. You should consider yourself lucky that you're losing just a knife. I once had a salesman/estimator that I hired lie and exaggerate the amount of power that we could save 18 public schools, 18. He exaggerated the hours of operation for the lighting in the classrooms, and he lied about the number of devices that were consuming power, all of which affects the amount of energy you save when you get new equipment. This is a problem when you work their energy savings into the total cost of construction. I don't want to blow a gasket thinking about it again, all I want to tell you is that you should consider yourself lucky because there are a lot worse things that could have happened to you. And yes, I did get sued by all 18 schools and they did win. But couldn't I simply sue the estimator I hired who flat out lied to earn more commissions? Yes I could have but what's the point if you know him well and you know he doesn't have any money. Me having to see his mug in court 20 more times just to be awarded a sum that will never be paid.....I'd rather be having sex instead of being the one getting f'd by my own lawyers.
The guy will send it to you eventually.
He's clearly not the entrepreneur of the year but we also know he's not a real thief or criminal because real thieves/criminals don't make their money in this manner. I don't know exactly how they do their thieving, but I'd bet my life that this isn't one of the ways thieves make a living. We're living in a time when anyone can buy credit card numbers with full identities on the dark web for $4 per record, credit cards that actually work when you use them. I doubt any thief is going to take this path to make money instead.
There's not even a 1% chance that he is doing this to steal your knife. But there's a 99% chance that he simply mismanaged his time, finances, and small business or at his age is dealing with a medical heath issue which I doubt because he would have reached out if he had a valid excuse. For example, no one can get angry with him if he calls you and says he had an emergency quadruple bypass or had a stroke or something, so he would have called or had his wife call etc. So I think we can rule that one out.
This was a really long winded way to say this but the bottom line is...your sanity is worth more than that damn knife.
