Yes, that's what I meant: stealing them would have been a good reason to lie but covering up a form of negligence (media failure) with another form of negligence (transaction malleability), which was the theory I was trying to refute, doesn't seem especially useful (hence the "no good reason to lie").
Not saying he is or isnt lying, but we cant just throw around the 'there is no good reason for him to say xyz' in this situation...