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.

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?

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.

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/after-3-years-seattles... (https://archive.ph/R6xfZ)

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/doj-withdraws-g... (https://archive.ph/BGGe8)

Related HN thread from 2022: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34184540

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.

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.

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...

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.

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.

> 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.

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".

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

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.