It's rare people will make such heartfelt and open apologies

Was this really that "heartfelt" and "open"? This is coming 4 years after the event and at this point literally no one gives a shit about it anymore except for him. This "apology" was basically a stream of consciousness where he explained every single little thing that's gone wrong with his life and put it up for display as if it's justification for what he did.

people who genuinely try to make amends for their mistakes

In what ways has he tried to make amends? Just by making this post? That's all you need to do is pour out your life story and that makes up for stealing from a tournament you're supposed to be running? And he has the audacity to complain that a reason he was upset was people weren't giving him enough authority over the tournament? Like what a joke, it's obvious this dude is struggling right now but everything that has happened is all on him and realizing murder is wrong 20 years into your life-sentence doesn't excuse what you did.

Really the coup d'etat for me comes in this line after he gets caught stealing:

As I walked away from the venue I had no idea If I’d ever see any of my friends again

SERIOUSLY?? He's trying to cry about how "omg i lost ma frendz" literally FIVE MINUTES AFTER HE STOLE IT FROM THEM. I doubt he would be crying as much if he hadn't been caught and had the $6k in his pocket.

I don't know anything about this dude and I really don't care about any of this just procrastinating studying atm but if he really wanted to get back involved with the smash community he would have started years ago by volunteering at local events, helping cleaning up, setting up, etc. etc. until he had cleared the shit from his name and was respected again. But nope, that's too much work, much easier to just make a 5 page essay talking about how sad my life is and how lonely I am.

I don't think this guy deserves any malice but he definitely doesn't deserve an open armed welcome. Really no one should give a shit about him and just judge him based on his actions thus forth