2) They may have prioritized murders and rapes over crimes, such as bad-check-passing, that can be remedied in a civil courtroom. That's generally what happens when state and local budgets get cut. For example, in 2009 and 2010, San Bernardino and Riverside counties simply did not enforce drug possession charges for meth or marijuana for quantities below the dealer amount because they didn't have the prosecutorial resources to handle those cases after prioritizing violent crimes.

3) HIRE A LAWYER. Winning a case against him in civil court for passing a bad check is pretty much guaranteed to spawn a criminal case because you'll have handed the prosecutors their case; they won't have to redirect many resources away from serious crimes.

"The USA [US Attorney] is invested by statute and delegation from the Attorney General with the broadest discretion in the exercise of such authority."

http://www.justice.gov/usao/eousa/foia_reading_room/usam/tit...

  The United States Attorney, within his/her district, has 
  plenary authority with regard to federal criminal matters. 
  This authority is exercised under the supervision and 
  direction of the Attorney General and his/her delegates.

  The statutory duty to prosecute for all offenses against 
  the United States (28 U.S.C. § 547) carries with it the 
  authority necessary to perform this duty. The USA is 
  invested by statute and delegation from the Attorney 
  General with the broadest discretion in the exercise of 
  such authority.

  The authority, discretionary power, and responsibilities of 
  the United States Attorney with relation to criminal 
  matters encompass without limitation by enumeration the 
  following:

  Investigating suspected or alleged offenses against the 
  United States, see USAM 9-2.010;

  Causing investigations to be conducted by the appropriate 
  federal law enforcement agencies, see USAM 9-2.010;

  Declining prosecution, see USAM 9-2.020;

  Authorizing prosecution, see USAM 9-2.030;

  Determining the manner of prosecuting and deciding trial 
  related questions;

  Recommending whether to appeal or not to appeal from an 
  adverse ruling or decision, see USAM 9-2.170;

  Dismissing prosecutions, see USAM 9-2.050; and

  Handling civil matters related thereto which are under the 
  supervision of the Criminal Division.

This is why the law is complicated: you cannot read a law in a vacuum; you must read it in conjunction with all other laws bearing upon the same issue.

Now you are arguing that the specific statute at issue did not allow Ortiz and Heymann to decline prosecution. That is a completely different contention, thought it is also false, as it is hard to think of something more subject to prosecutorial discretion than the 1984 CFAA:

http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/ninth-circuit-scales-back-c...

  The Nosal opinion expresses grave concern that the broad 
  reading advocated by the government could criminalize much 
  innocuous activity. In particular, the Court notes that 
  the phrase "exceeds authorized access" appears in another 
  section of the CFAA, § 1030(a)(2)(C), which has no 
  requirement of fraudulent purpose, and requires only that 
  the person who "exceeds authorized access" has "obtain[ed] 
  . . . information from any protected computer" (i.e. any 
  computer that can connect to the Internet). The 
  government's view, the Court feared, could "make every 
  violation of a private computer use policy a federal 
  crime."

In short, you are just factually wrong here that the federal prosecutors have no discretion in general (your first claim), or that they had no discretion with respects to the statutes at issue here (your second claim).

1. Guaranteed? Man already has multiple suits and judgements against him in civil court in past few years in addition to having servdd time years ago for a similar crime. He even has a warrant out in another state AFAIK. No criminal charges in NY(where I am based) or California(where he and many of his victims are).

2. It's very hard collecting money from him even after you win the judgement, from my conversations with those who have. In the end, I risk taking an even bigger hit especially if he countersues(even the odd lawyer willing to work on contingency warns me that he will almost certainly countersue for which I will need to pay out of pocket)

My best option in light of these realizations was to build this site which seems to have at least made a dent in his ability to scam. For example, the guy has been playing with the spelling of his name, at least partially I'm guessing so my site does not pull up when his next victim googles.

Unfortunately, there have been a great many scams like this in the past 4 years and this guy may have just slipped through the cracks as a result of staff cutbacks.

The authorities will likely be grateful to you for any assistance you can provide them, i.e., by helping them locate other victims.

Because I've been trying at the county and city level and after sending many victims to ring up the investigators, little has come out of it.

I always thought at the state level my chances are even bleaker of getting their attention.

Meanwhile, what is the expected RoI on hiring a lawyer to recoup a $10,000 debt? Especially if the guy is a deadbeat? Probably somewhere around negative $50k, I'd wager.