Bogus Copyright Infringement Complaint: Suspended

I did some independent contractor work for a friend starting a new branch of his business from mid-April to mid-July. I should have known better than to trust this "friend" as he is a snake and has not paid me for the work I did beyond the partial month of April. May/June/July bills are due totaling $3800.00 and he will not pay up. The middle of July was the last work I did for him and am no longer doing any of his projects.

As part of start-up and marketing a driver education program I created a website. I paid for the (generic, not associated with his business name) domain name, am the registrant, paid for the hosting, and full control the website. The website design and updating fees are part of the amount due, and I told him I would be happy to give him administrative rights to the website since I already had it up and running.

When he figured out he couldn't sneak behind my back and talk the web host service out of the access info, he was quite ticked off. Out came the gloves and he started a different domain name/website with someone else and they cried "copyright infringement" to the hosting company so my web site would be suspended. QUESTION: When the web host receives a complaint such as this, what is the proper procedure for handling it based on the DMCA and copyright laws? The host's site only has a statement in his policy about what to do if you are a target of copyright infringement. Common sense would tell me (although laws and common sense don't always go together) that as the customer of the hosting company, I should have been notified, given the opportunity to take down whatever they were objecting to, and then show the host that I did take the material off. I need to look into the Intellectual Property aspect of it, but that is not what I'm concerned about at the moment.

What rights do I have as the one getting bushwacked to have my website re-activated? Am I entitled to view all supporting documents? I have opened a support ticket asking why it was suspended 18 days ago, they responded with the emailed complaint (minus supporting documents) from the new web host, and didn't say what I needed to do to remedy the situation.

I intend to clear all of his stuff off my website and use it for another purpose, since I've already paid for the domain name and a year of web hosting.

The next step, after getting this website freed up again will be taking the deadbeat to conciliation/small claims court to collect the amount due with the assistance of an attorney. In our county if you appeal a judgement, it goes to district court and you have to have an attorney. I can see this guy with deep pockets financially beating me up for the fun of it. I can't afford to play that game.

Sorry this got long, but the moral of the story is: Do NOT trust friends who are snakes to others in business dealings...they will be a snake to you, too.