I'm sorry to say, this is still not working. I removed the Mac from the tracking list on iCloud.com, tried all 3 key combinations for Internet Recovery, and even booting from a Protogo USB. All attempts ended the same way with the 1008F error.
The stranger thing was the Protogo boot attempt. I pressed Option at startup and the Protogo was displayed as the only startup disk. However, after selecting it, the Mac went into Internet Recovery boot up instead of booting from the USB. It's like it's stuck in trying to complete the Internet Recovery.
Any way to reset that T2 chip?