> Emails coming to light in a court case where Ben has used the
> name of Monard Law outside his remit in an attempt at extortion,
> and Ben no longer being with Monard some weeks later.

(emphasis mine)
A more exact chronology would help here, I guess. Did the emails come to light in the court case before June? McEwen or anybody he in turn forwarded Hermans' emails to (as he wrote) could have told Monard about them as early as February 2017.

> As for 3.1.4.1, it seems Costel still didn't turn up.

"Thor's 3.1.4.1" did, so no further countdown needed for that, no matter if it was Costel or not who put it on the server. Btw, how do we know it wasn't him?