The worst case is that they argue that the company wouldn't exist without his misappropriation of AOLs resources and should be awarded X% of the company as comp

The worst case is that they argue that the company wouldn't exist without his misappropriation of AOLs resources and should be awarded X% of the company as compensation, where X is equal to the percentage of the company that equals the amount of money that he cost AOL in food, supplies, network access, etc... at the time of the misappropriation. They could argue that they were de-facto investors because of the material support they "offered". Or they could keep him tied up in court trying to argue his way out of it. The only reason why he is going to make it out of this okay is the bad press that AOL would get for going after him.