I think the guy made a couple serious missteps here that created a bad situation and then made it a lot worse:
1. He got into the car carrying narcotics that he wasn't legally allowed to use.
2. He accepted legal advice without doing his homework:
"After being assured that the penalty would be light," James told Reason in an email, "it turned into a bigger ordeal than I could ever imagine."
The article makes it sound like the judge at the bond hearing advised him to plead no contest, assuring him that the penalty would be light, and he accepted that advice without any further thought. It doesn't sound like he even hired an attorney:
"The judge who heard James' case accepted the no-contest plea. Then he began stacking on penalties."
Were I in this guy's situation, I would not gone to my court date without a lawyer, a plan for getting everything dropped or sealed, and an idea of the worst-case scenario.
3. He was ignorant of the licensing requirements of his profession:
Having worked in finance for the last 2.5 years (admittedly, on the development rather than business side), it seems very unlikely to me that this fellow would have gotten his Series 7 license and started employment as a stock broker without being forced to learn the requirements for reporting legal problems like this.
The moral of the story is:
1. Do your homework, especially on criminal legal matters.
2. Do not blindly accept legal advice (or narcotics!) from strangers.
3. Mount an aggressive defense to any criminal matters.
I think firing the guy and leaving it at that is the optimal thing for BK to do. Let's agree that it probably won't be cost effective to garnish the guy's wages, in terms of legal costs to take him to court, the potential future income he'll have, etc. On BK's side, there's a lot of risk of negative publicity involved with taking him to court. I don't think being fired is being let off easy - surely this stunt will make it at least more difficult to be hired at another fast-food place.
What the linked article doesn't discuss is that it is possible to get a real-time notification when a trade occurs. The price of the last trade is the mid-point that you are referring to. Algo trading/HFT shops are listening for trades as well as quotes - this is how they know the price that trades are actually happening at.
I had a point early in my career where I accepted a 5 hour daily commute (round trip) in order to accomplish the more important goal of finding meaningful work in my field in the region I wanted to live in. Definitely sub-optimal, locally, but things worked out for the best in the end. I _did_ gain 25 lbs or so in 10 months of doing this. Luckily, it sounds like the poster is only doing this temporarily.
1. Consume live market data and use an exchange simulator that always gives you back a fill.
2. Use a true exchange simulator, which you will have to seed with orders to provide liquidity and generate real quotes (with a proper spread and not locked or crossed).
With the second approach, you get a more accurate representation of how markets work, but the exercises will have to be more planned out and directed.