There is probably nothing whatsoever the judge could have done about this action by itself. The issue is the conversations around it, which established intent. The chat logs provide hard evidence that it was done in bad faith and with criminal intent.

Now that I think about it, I wonder how much of the current backlash against remote work is to avoid this exact situation. Face to face conversations don't end up in evidence. Written conversations do, and video chats are increasingly being summarized and recorded by AI.