Agreed, this is material to spin BTC as a criminal thing.
Probably different from MtGox because:
- money laundering - no victim no crime
- mtgox and the lawyers steeling - this is a crime
If lawyers get involved over money laundering and change fees that come out of the exchanges funds then they will be committing a crime by stealing funds from the exchanges customers. This could very well be a crime compliments of the US Dept of Justice (justice for who?).
MtGox was the first thing that came to mind but i see your logic on this and it makes a whole lot more sense. If this is the case, then we can possibly see that the movement of the 170 million BTC may have been some kind of contingency plan to keep it out of the hands of the DOJ, since the Admin had been arrested.
This was my theory also. BTC-e may of even had inside knowledge of the arrest. But this is just speculation for the time being.