First of all, it's a civil case so leaving the country doesn't mean anything.
Second, two days ago his lawyers put in an appeal against Sony being able to look through his computer and the final decision is still pending.
Third, he did give his hard drives to a third party already, but didn't give them a controller card to hook them up.
Lastly, he has already returned from South America and surrendered the controller cards.
Wired is a little bit more trustworthy than random interwebs
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/03/sony-hotz-skipped-tow/
The only interesting thing is whether or not he actually did connect to PSN. The rest is just coincidence that he had already arranged a trip to South America and decided not to cancel his trip because of the pending court case.
