Thanks for help, in advance.
Backstory:
Last night I noticed that a rather large sum (felony amount) in a couple blank money orders were missing from my room (I live with a few roommates). I started to panic and remembered a debit card that had gone missing a several days prior, but hadn't really gotten around to looking that hard for. Given the large sum missing I immediately pulled up the online banking of the missing debit card to see if there was any suspicious activity and it was clearly used all over my area by someone else.
Last night in mentioning it 1 roommate it became known to all roommates (3 of the 4 of them) that I had just had a large amount of money stolen. In the process of trying to figure out who did it I made it very clear that it would be all of 1 day before we would have surveillance footage of the person who stole. All vehemently denied. I called in the money orders and they were all cashed, but I wont know for 2 days where (photocopies coming).
Today, police has confirmed no questions asked which one it was (video evidence) and I'm sitting on an open and shut case if you have ever seen one. He is brothers with another roommate who suspected it might be him and promised to personally "beat the shit out of him" on my behalf if it's shown to be him.
Question:
-The roommate is a legitimate flight risk (likely already fled)...little tying him to the location at this point--temp job (although he does have a daughter not far away)
-The roommate has little to lose at this stage in actually complying with any court order to return funds assuming he even has it anymore. He might be in trouble with other nefarious characters over debts and may have done this to try to pay those debts (this was the rescue case of his brother and I'm typically the type that likes to help so I was okay with him moving in, no good deed goes unpunished)
-He has little allies and am not all that physically worried about him given his brother. Think more Edward Norton in Rounders than anyone else if you want a picture.
-The cops are telling me to go home tonight without informing anyone that I know who it is. I should point out that I don't have a great poker face for these situations. I know they're going to badger me about what I know at this stage.
-MoneyGram is obviously claiming no liability and I doubt the places they were cashed at will take any liability (they were legitimate Money Orders after all). It only leaves recovery from the thief roommate or my renters insurance policy which I haven't even begun to read yet.
The problem is that I'm struggling with the idea of putting my faith in the law and the court system to recover my stolen money. I seriously think that his brothers might seriously be more effective at compelling him to pay up and their knowledge of his activities are valuable. Should I involve them and try to negotiate a deal to trade me pulling away charges in exchange for returning funds? Also, I think the threat of me holding the sway on felony charges is my greatest piece of leverage. In order to get the message out would mean telling them tonight. I don't care about him getting charged (I would probably prefer him not being if anything) I just want to recover my funds and I'm worried at this stage law enforcement will be more concerned about holding up their open and shut case I have given them on a silver platter and getting a conviction than actually getting my money back.

