... let's not totally rule money out of the equation, because even wizards have to live ... one of Harry's biggest struggles has been to make ends meet financially...
I think Harry is unusually impoverished, for a wizard. They have LOTS of ways to get rich, or just comfortable, should they choose to avail themselves. Many of them wouldn't get anywhere close to breaking any Laws of Magic, or break Mortal laws, either. I've always taken it to be DresdenStuborness(tm) (the unwillingness to do anything as "selfish" as making money
easily with magic) that kept him poor. I mean, Harry is an unusually powerful wizard, with a decided knack for "finding things" -- how many lost/unclaimed treasures d'you suppose Harry could find, if he didn't think that was "icky"? I think it'd be a LOT... And it doesn't even have to be valuables that he takes to liquidate; I bet there are troves of documents that historians would pay a premium to get, and he could grab a cool million or more as a "finders fee," etc etc etc.
If Justin DuMorne was actually hard up for money, it was similarly a "choice."
... While he hasn't become corrupt because of it, a driving need to pay the rent has pushed him into making some less than wise choices in the past ...
Yeah. Harry's stupid that way. Because he's got these magic powers, because he can
do stuff... that makes him a real
target for manipulation;
choosing to be poor hangs a great big lever off himself saying, "
Pull Here to motivate Harry Dresden."
... However Justin's reputation was so sterling that no one ever suspected until Harry took him down and even now many refuse to believe.
Do we actually know Justin's reputation?
I mean, he was obviously known as a very combat-capable Warden (or he wouldn't have been on Kemmler duty)! Presumably, he shared in the general "Warden" rep -- the greycloaks are kinda grim, very dangerous, implacable, etc...
But what was his
personal rep? "Sterling," or "another powerful greycloak," or
do we even know?
But I think the "refusal to believe" is just human nature, they don't want to face it. Just like the mundanes will do almost anything to convince themselves that magic doesn't exist, that the supernatural beasties are just myths, etc.
Most wizards aren't actually very combat-capable (as the Spooky community judges such things). They don't want to believe that one of their Wardens -- the very ones who keep them save from Warlocks and other Bad Magic -- can turn so evil, and be so undetected.