Bad karma. People get hesitant to work at your company if you don't pay your employees, so you only get people who don't mind that risk.

After the public shaming (hey, that was WAY more efficient than a lawyer), they could at least have been honest. But hey that takes balls, moral standards, and uhm, probably either apologizing and quitting the company either saying "screw that guy we're not paying him because we don't like him". Of course, that's utopia.

Obviously if they had either there would again, be no story, since they'd just have been honest to start with.

They did not do the right thing. They only paid because they got caught, and paying was probably in their best interests financially going forward.

Not working there.