Payment was conditional on being first and being exclusive. You do not pay 1 million dollars to be second out the gate, particularly because you can simply copy the first guy's work.
Unless the evad3rs released first, they would not get paid. Or, more accurately, they would have to return money. I don't think they were excited by that prospect.
This evad3rs letter is, to use clapper-ism, "the least untruthful statement"
