those financials from a year ago were not any good
"Not any good" is an understatement. Some (most notably Scorpio) used the excuse that they were simply not Sarbanes-Oxley compliant. If that were the case, that insufficiency would have been rectified a long time ago. I'm quite sure they indeed weren't SOX compliant, but even beyond that, in my opinion they were most likely totally fraudulent, which is why he was afraid to release them, fearing he might be prosecuted.