Yeah they will do that when they're being idiots, which is quite often. There should be a hold on it being reassigned, if the porting request is recent, keep on hounding them until they get it worked out, if it's been awhile, you're probably hosed.
Know what will kill self-hosted email? Giving up and hosting your email with the big guys, the less self hosted email servers there are the less the big guys feel any requirement to support it
I find it less concerning that the police have this info, than the fact that it's just a random company providing it and presumably anybody with the cash to buy access could buy the same or equivalent system.
Yeap, I don't understand this security stuff, I don't know why we just don't turn it all off.
As an aside, my life has been much easier since I learned you can 'sudo su' your shell and then everything just works.