So your friend accepted stolen cable as an implicit bribe in exchange for not ratting out the cable guy who would’ve lost his job for a serious workplace safety violation. Not an easy ethical call as I’m sure he didn’t want his own contributory poor judgment to be the cause of the cable guy’s firing, but the basic facts are pretty clear.
One wonders how many friends of the cable guy got similar deals. As a teenager I had a girlfriend whose father (probably knowingly) was stealing electricity from the power company. He could easily have afforded it.
I don’t know the details. He had a fall from up around the roof and I guess the cable guy was worried that there was a lawsuit on the way. My friend is a big liberal and didn’t want the guy to lose his job.
It’s a tough call. Do you call the cable company and ask for a bill? That would get the cable guy in trouble and he’d probably lose his job. I wouldn’t call the cable company. But then I wouldn’t get cable. I don’t have a television.