from Hacker News

"Jeff Bezos and Amazon tried to imprison my husband"

by FlamingMoe on 8/10/24, 6:53 PM with 101 comments

  • by A_D_E_P_T on 8/10/24, 7:36 PM

    People who haven't dealt with the legal system in the USA don't understand -- and perhaps can't understand -- how bad it is.

    I've been involved in (commercial) civil cases in numerous countries. I can say from experience that the civil legal system in China, of all places, is ~50x cheaper, 4x faster, and in the end it attains better results -- in large part because it is cheaper and faster.

    In the US, even a totally uncomplicated Federal civil suit is going to cost you $200k-500k(+) and take a couple of years. Families who are forced to defend themselves usually end up broke, or get beaten up by teams of expensive attorneys when they are forced to argue their own cases in court pro se and in forma pauperis.

    It's surely far worse when criminal prosecution and asset forfeiture are involved, as was the case in the link at OP.

    Ultimately, it's like that old saying, "the punishment is the process." If you're exposed to the courts, you lose. (Even if you win, you can lose, because the US court system makes it very difficult to collect on judgments.) It's a shame that the courts have become a weapon that companies like Amazon use, as a blunt tool, to gain commercial advantage.

  • by smsm42 on 8/10/24, 7:28 PM

    Hard to understand the details from that description, but it certainly looks like Carl Nelson (the husband) took money ("referral fees"?) from RE developers who were doing business with Amazon, while also being employed by Amazon. Now I am not a lawyer and don't play one on TV, but I sat through enough corporate ethics training to recognize this is exactly the case where they want you to at least get an official approval from Legal before getting any money, because this has "conflict of interest" written all over it.

    Again I don't know what the contract Amazon had allowed and disallowed and what the lawyers can or can't prove in court, but it certainly - at least from the quick reading of it - does not seem like the case of "Amazon prosecuting innocent person out of the blue" but seems a lot like "Amazon employee did something which looks a lot like your standard kickback scheme". And their argument "but the deals I brought were awesome" does not really sound impressive - they may be awesome, but if you work for company A and bring an awesome deal with company B, you expect a bonus from the company A, not a kickback from the company B. If you do the latter, you're in a hot water regardless of how awesome the deal is.

    Do I miss something substantial in this story?

  • by fxtentacle on 8/10/24, 7:56 PM

    My summary:

    1. Amazon told DOJ that there was a breach of contract.

    2. DOJ did not verify and confiscated everything.

    3. Turns out, there was no breach of contract.

    4. DOJ did not NOT punish Amazon for providing the wrong information which triggered all this.

    And I think the author makes two very valid points: The DOJ should have been forced to actually read the contract in question and verify that there was a criminal breach BEFORE destroying someone's live. And the DOJ should have punished Amazon or its lawyers for misrepresenting what the contract contained.

    That said, what her husband did (buying land based on insider information) was certainly unethical. It just wasn't illegal.

  • by cpach on 8/10/24, 7:29 PM

  • by kasey_junk on 8/10/24, 7:30 PM

    I don’t have any knowledge about this case or opinions about it (other than this side of the story which is damning).

    But the thread itself is internally inconsistent. One post claims that we’d never hear about this because the mainstream media is in Amazon’s pocket (with an explicit appeal that they aren’t for some reason in Musks).

    But then she links to a Wapo article about the case. The post is famously owned by Jeff Bezos.

  • by deschutes on 8/10/24, 8:06 PM

    Author is untrustworthy and misrepresenting the actual details of the purported misdeeds if the sources cited in this thread are accurate.

    Whether or not there is some legal argument that he didn't violate his employment contract anyone would recognize the conflict of interest at the heart of those transactions as fraud. Seems like the feds or Amazon just bungled the case.

    This is funny to juxtapose with Neil Gorsuch giving accounts of honest people getting tied up in criminal cases or byzantine regulations for reasonable behavior. Hard to escape the conclusion the system is tuned to reward those with resources rather than find justice.

  • by coolspot on 8/10/24, 7:32 PM

    For context, her husband was in charge of buying land for Amazon data-centers.

    Somehow, Amazon would decide to buy exact parcel that his real estate friend just acquired couple weeks before.

    ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    > On July 30, 2019, Ramstetter and Camenson, working without Watson’s knowledge, bought the land and then sold it to Amazon for $116.4 million, turning a $17.7 million profit on land they owned for less than a day. Attorneys for Amazon contend Casey Kirschner supported the price internally at Amazon in exchange for a $5 million kickback, which he then allegedly split with Nelson.

    https://www.geekwire.com/2021/former-aws-real-estate-manager...

  • by gist on 8/10/24, 7:27 PM

    First this type of information should be on a web page or blog post. Not a hard to read twitter thread.

    Second saying that Jeff Bezos wrote (and further that he tried to imprison her husband) it makes the OP loose credibility (especially as an attorney) for her argument (regardless of the outcome). While it's possible Jeff did write it (in the sense that a plant in the garden couldn't have written it because plants can't write) it's not credible to imply that fact to prove your point.

    Also a law degree is not 'helpful no matter what route you take' from my many many years of business experience and interactions it can actually hold you back. Because you might tend to look at edge cases (such as this one) and make judgements based on things you know. Not to mention it takes years of study which detracts from other things you might learn that might be more helpful.

  • by hiddencost on 8/10/24, 7:28 PM

    I would hope that these folks would have the ability to use Amazon for expenses, lost revenue, anguish& suffering, and punitive damages.

    Making them whole seems like the necessary remedy, and making it so expensive that Amazon nor its peers do it again seems like the appropriate recourse.

  • by blackeyeblitzar on 8/10/24, 11:30 PM

    This is a good series of tweets to read and make up your own mind on. I found this one (https://x.com/Amy_K_Nelson/status/1822329323715441128) interesting:

    > Lying to the FBI is a federal crime.

    > But prosecutors selectively enforce the law. They choose winners & losers.

    > So forgive me if I think it's empty when AG Garland says DOJ enforces law "without fear or favor."

    This is true in most local jurisdictions as well. For example in LA, SF, Portland, and Seattle the city prosecutors regularly choose to not enforce the law against offenders, and simply release them back into the public without consequence. The same thing happens at all levels of the government. For example the DOJ doesn’t pursue cases against states like California that maliciously violate constitutional law or SCOTUS rulings. And so it is the same in this case too it seems.

  • by bitzun on 8/10/24, 7:34 PM

    Preface: Obviously everything done to the Nelsons by the FBI/Amazon is despicable. That said, it's not addressed here whether her husband actually did something unethical, just whether it was against the employee agreement or strictly illegal.

    I find this situation kind of interesting as it's incredibly rich real estate developers who did seem to be playing some kind of game vs the third richest person in the world who runs a vastly larger scummier enterprise. I don't really think either party is "regular people".

  • by amatecha on 8/10/24, 7:28 PM

    Stories like this are why I reduce my usage of Amazon (which is basically becoming "American AliExpress") further and further.

  • by FlamingMoe on 8/10/24, 7:17 PM

  • by PessimalDecimal on 8/10/24, 7:28 PM

    I wouldn't touch employment at Amazon with a 30 foot pole.

  • by FredPret on 8/10/24, 7:22 PM

    What a shithole company.

    Also, how in the world is "civil asset forfeiture" (aka pure government theft) legal in the US of all places?

  • by xyst on 8/10/24, 7:31 PM

    If you ever needed a reason why it’s a bad idea to hold all assets in a single fiat currency.

    This is exactly the reason.

    Gov PR, media, tv, film tells you it only does this to “bad” people. While that _may_ be true, it also impacts a small amount of innocent individuals caught between the crosshairs of a multibillion dollar company, their army of retained lawyers, and politics.