Is a post dated cheque bouncing considered fraud?

My husband works overseas 10 months a year. Wanted to move to the city. I found a house, called the landlord. Explained to him that my husband would be gone, it would just be my kids and I. He was fine with it. I also found out he knew my father in law, and my sister in law. I told him that my husbands pay gets direct deposited into our bank account, but that there would be a delay with the deposit due to a change in banking info. He was fine with it. He sent me a lease to sign, as well as requested 3 months rent upfront, as the first two months and last month deposit. (that was written into the lease).

I waited a few days to sign the lease, as my husbands pay was due to our account. I gave notice at our current rental, and called the new landlord to inform him I had signed the lease, and was just waiting on my husbands pay being deposited. He said if he didn't have proof I had mailed the lease and a postdated cheque for $3750 within 3 days, the lease was null and void, and he would rent it to someone else.

I signed the lease & cheque, mailed it to him. The cheque was post dated for 8 days later, which should have given us plently of time for my husbands deposit to be in our account. When I saw his deposit would not reach our account in time to clear the cheque (international funds got screened before deposit), I emailed and called the new landlord, asking him to hold the cheque for a few days so it wouldn't bounce. He said no. I also informed him we would not expect posession of the house until the cheque had cleared. He went BONKERS at this point. Calling up to 22 times a day, saying he was driving up to our house 3 hours away, etc. I informed him at that point I wanted to cancel the lease- he was making me very nervous with his agression and threats.

HE again said no- that I has wasted his time and I was "Renting the damn house". Again with threats- he would "get what was his" and drive to our house, he would go after my father in law for money, etc.

He then sent a revised lease to me, with new dates, as well as my father in law (how he got his email address, work address and info is beyond me). My father in law refused to sign a lease- the landlord had all new lease terms, like cosignors, monthly inspections, cash rent only, etc.

We let him know we would not be moving into his house, as the situation with him was out of control. More threats of legal action, suing us, charging us with cheque fraud, etc. I again told him- we never took posession, we have no keys or means of entry, we had expectations of the $ being there to cover the cheque (our funds get held up in security checks, as they are from Asia, so it held them up verifying where they came from- this was because we had new banking info they needed to look into also). We also did not have a copy of the lease signed by the landlord, and we had several dozen emails of threats, agression. as well as voicemails, phone records, etc. We told him he wasn't being reasonable, and my husband tol dhim he did not feel okay with having us live in this guys house while he is at work in a different country. The guy told him to "**** himself" and hung up.

THEN he called back several times a day for TWO MORE WEEKS. We also found out in this time that he had done this sort of thing to other tenants, and had kicked some out for being like an HOUR late dropping off rent, as well as going into the house without permission, and has a turnover rate of a new tenant in this house every 4 months or so.

Also, our bank informed me that they had flagged our cheque to him as "altered", saying the date on it looked suspicious- I had written the cheque for October 11, it tried clearing our bank on October 10, and it looked like the date had been chaged to October 01. There is NO WAY it would have reached our bank ONE DAY BEFORE the date on it, and tried to clear. He sent me an email saying his bank had done a "verbal inquiry" into the funds in our account, and our bank had "given him the run around" about the funds. And that he did not cash the cheque early, his bank maybe had done it, not him. Our bank does NOT DO VERBAL INQUIRYS. They also stated that the date had been changed, and it would have been held even if the funds were there, as the date did not look right. I also still have the carbon copy of the cheque in my chequebook, with a date on it of October 11.

He emailed me last night (this is up over 150 emails from him in the last 6 weeks), saying he was having me charged with fraud unless I gave him $1000 by Friday. Cash.

What should I do? Pay him or fight it?