Jeff Bezos, Amazon & The Case That Took Everything | Amy Nelson

Summary

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Episode Summary:

Miss Understood with Rachel Uchitel

Episode: "Jeff Bezos, Amazon & The Case That Took Everything" | Guest: Amy Nelson

Release Date: May 5, 2026

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Overview

This episode of "Miss Understood with Rachel Uchitel" features Amy Nelson as she recounts a harrowing six-year legal and personal ordeal involving her family, Amazon, and Jeff Bezos. Nelson, a former litigator and tech entrepreneur, details how her husband (a former Amazon employee) was swept into a multimillion-dollar kickback allegation. Despite never being charged with a crime, the family's world was turned upside down by asset seizures, public lawsuits, and relentless legal actions—putting a spotlight on the power imbalance between individuals and corporate giants. Throughout, Rachel and Amy discuss the broader implications for justice, crisis management, and speaking out against overwhelming systems.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Background: Who is Amy Nelson and What Happened?

• Amy and her husband Carl both had established careers—she as a litigator, he in commercial real estate, specializing in data centers for Amazon Web Services (AWS).
• After seven years at Amazon, Carl left the company (permitted by his contract) to start his own real estate business.
• Their ordeal began abruptly:

  "We did not think there was any problem until, quite literally, the FBI knocked on our door."
  – Amy Nelson [02:15]

• In April 2020, the FBI raided their home, presenting Carl with a target letter in a federal criminal investigation and seizing all their assets.

2. Nature of the Allegations

• Carl was accused by Amazon and the DOJ of "private sector honest services fraud"—criminally violating company policies by allegedly steering deals and receiving kickbacks while still employed (Amy: "It's literally allowing private companies to rewrite federal criminal law." [09:50])
• The evidence triggering the investigation: an anonymous email to Jeff Bezos accusing Carl of $50 million in kickbacks.
• Amazon did not reach out to Carl before bringing in federal law enforcement:

  "They did not ask my husband what happened. They did not investigate... They just went to the FBI."
  – Amy Nelson [10:09]

3. Immediate Fallout: FBI Raid, Asset Seizures, and Upheaval

• The FBI “took it out of our bank accounts... they literally took everything and to the dollar.” [18:00]
• Civil forfeiture allowed asset seizure without charges, forcing the family to sell their home, move between relatives, and upend their lives.
• Amy:

  "The government can seize your assets based on the suspicion that they’re connected to a crime... and you are then responsible for hiring a lawyer to prove that asset’s innocence." [18:52]

4. Legal Battles: DOJ Pressure & Amazon’s Civil Case

• The DOJ repeatedly pressured Carl to plead guilty, threatening prison, despite never actually charging him.
• Four associated defendants pled guilty—then, highly unusually, those pleas were later vacated.

  “After we fought for years, those guilty pleas were vacated by the Department of Justice... What happened was unprecedented in American legal history.”
  – Amy Nelson [30:15]

• Amy’s insight into the motivation:

  "Amazon made a very brash decision to break a lease for data centers that was worth half a billion dollars... The only way they could justify it was if the developer pled guilty or was convicted of a felony.” [34:46]

5. Public Narrative, Reputation, and Going Public

• Amy discusses the stigma, her job loss due to press coverage ("On the fifth day of my new job, my boss called ... and HR was there and they fired me because they read an article about my husband's legal issues." [27:48]), and repeated legal bullying.
• Decision to go public:

  “At that point, I was like, it doesn’t matter if I’m quiet or if I’m loud. My career is going to be hit by this, right? So I would rather speak out and tell the truth and not be afraid of it than be quiet.” [28:17]

• Rachel strongly endorses speaking out in crisis:

  "In the absence of your voice, some sort of truth is given in there that’s not true..." [38:13]

6. Systemic Power Imbalances & Media Complicity

• Amy and Rachel highlight the immense resources Amazon (and other major corporations) deploy in litigation.
• Both note the media’s hesitance to cover damaging stories about Amazon due to advertising dependence:

  "Amazon is the largest purchaser of ads in the global media... You’ll notice you’ve never seen in any legacy newspaper any sort of deep dive into Jeff Bezos or Amazon’s business practices.” [49:28]

7. Current Status & Ongoing Impact

• After years of legal entanglement, the DOJ vacated all relevant pleas, and the criminal matter is over.
• The civil case with Amazon remains active—Amy’s family is still in litigation, continuing to battle for resolution and restitution (trial slated for this November).
• When asked about lasting effects:

  “We are still enmeshed in the civil case... we have kind of built a life here [in Ohio]... rebuilding credibility and financial stability is still ongoing.” [45:17]

• Career impacts persist—they’re now self-employed as a matter of necessity.

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Notable Quotes & Key Moments

On the Day of the Raid:

“It was April 2, 2020... I heard a knock at the door and... I couldn’t see the back, so I didn’t know what the jacket said... They flashed their FBI badges.”
— Amy Nelson [11:25]

On Civil Forfeiture / Asset Seizure:

“They didn’t freeze it. They took it. They took it out of our bank accounts.”
— Amy Nelson [13:31]

“If anybody takes anything away from this show at all... never speak to any law enforcement without a lawyer.”
— Amy Nelson [12:19]

On the Legal Nightmare:

“You are then responsible for hiring a lawyer to fight, to prove that asset's innocence. There is no due process... because the legal action is against a bank account or a car.”
— Amy Nelson [18:52]

On Their Motivation for Going Public:

“In the absence of your voice, some sort of truth is given, and... it’s really difficult for people to come back after that; the narrative has already been painted for them.”
— Rachel Uchitel [38:13]

On Her Message to Jeff Bezos:

“I wish you would sit down in a room and talk with us.”
— Amy Nelson [62:41]

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Timeline & Important Timestamps

• [02:08] – Rachel introduces the central narrative: lawsuit with Amazon/Bezos
• [05:16-07:30] – Amy describes her husband’s work building data centers for AWS
• [09:34-11:14] – How the FBI got involved and Amazon’s accusations
• [12:37-14:53] – The moment of the FBI raid; the onset of terror
• [18:00-21:47] – Asset seizures, moving, and coping with financial ruin
• [27:48-28:32] – Amy discusses losing her job due to public accusations
• [30:15] – The DOJ’s unprecedented vacating of guilty pleas
• [34:46] – Explaining Amazon's possible motive for the legal campaign
• [45:17-47:34] – Amy discusses the ongoing civil case and returning 85% of seized funds
• [49:28-50:26] – On media silence regarding Amazon's legal tactics
• [53:54-54:35] – Cultural reflections on Bezos, the Met Gala, and shifting public opinion
• [61:16] – Amy’s career pivots and current advocacy
• [62:41] – Her message to Jeff Bezos

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Tone & Speaker Styles

• Amy Nelson: Calm, detailed, resilient, and forthright; provides legal background and personal details with clarity.
• Rachel Uchitel: Sympathetic, direct, advocacy-focused; pushes for broader lessons, challenges crisis PR orthodoxy, affirms Amy’s public strategy.

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Memorable/Striking Moments

• Amy describing the surreal fear of being treated as a criminal due to a corporate accusation [25:04].
• DOJ’s admission they never possessed or reviewed Carl's employment contract before mounting a criminal case [15:00].
• The cold exchange:

  “A federal prosecutor... said that my husband could have money back to feed his children if he would plead guilty.”
  [19:22]

• The star witness for the government contacting Amy afterward to say her husband did nothing wrong and was coerced [48:20].
• Discussion about Amazon’s influence over global media [49:28].
• Rachel’s strong advocacy for speaking out early and truthfully in crisis management [38:13].
• Personal impact: Amy’s family repeatedly relocating, children’s disrupted education, and professional life upended [25:37].
• Amy noting the “one lawsuit away” vulnerability for anyone caught against immense corporate power [57:53].

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Closing Thoughts

This episode deepens our understanding of how unchecked corporate and government power can devastate families—without due process or even formal charges. Amy’s account is both a warning and a rallying call for transparency, legal reform, and the necessity of personal advocacy. Her conclusion is poignant: despite overwhelming odds, speaking out and reclaiming the narrative is both possible and essential.

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Follow Amy Nelson:

• All platforms: [@amyknelson]
• The Riveter (startup): [theriveter.com] or @theriveterco

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Transcript

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[Amy Nelson]

or approved by Novo Nordisk.

[Rachel Yukatel]

What if you were in a lawsuit with Amazon and Jeff Bezos? That is exactly what Amy Nelson says happened to her family.

[Amy Nelson]

We did not think there was any problem until, quite literally, the FBI knocked on her door.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Amazon claimed her husband was part of a multimillion dollar kickback scheme. They alleged he helped arrange inflated land purchases for data centers and secretly profited through side deals with developers. In simple terms, they believed he used insider knowledge to personally benefit from real estate deals.

[Amy Nelson]

They took all of our money.

[Rachel Yukatel]

They froze it. Is that what you mean?

[Amy Nelson]

Or they didn't freeze it. They took it. They took it out of our bank accounts.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Then everything escalated. The FBI raided their home while their children were there. Their assets were taken, and their entire financial life collapsed.

[Amy Nelson]

They were told, you need to plead guilty. And if you don't plead guilty, we're going to take you to trial and put you in prison for a very long time.

[Rachel Yukatel]

And here's where the story takes a turn.

[Amy Nelson]

My husband's ultimately never charged with any crime.

[Family Member / Secondary Narrator]

But you've never been charged to this

[Amy Nelson]

date with any crime?

[Family Member / Secondary Narrator]

Never.

[Rachel Yukatel]

After years of investigation, six years to be exact, the government has never filed charges against her husband. Related cases were also dropped. Key pleas were vacated. No conviction, no charges. So how does a family lose everything over a case that never even made it to trial?

[Amy Nelson]

There's just so many things you can do as a sophisticated legal party with a lot of money to just kind of like destroy people before they can even fight back.

[Rachel Yukatel]

That is the story Amy Nelson is now telling and why she refuses to stay silent. Listen to her break it all down today on Misunderstood. Amy, thank you so much for joining me. Today on Misunderstood. How are you?

[Amy Nelson]

I'm good. Thanks for having me, Rachel.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Of course. So somebody tuned me into your Instagram and I started going down this rabbit hole of listening to all this very complicated stuff. But the simple answer to this is that this is like a David and Goliath situation where you guys are against the most, you know, the richest, the most famous business out there, Jeff Bezos and Amazon. So I wanted to get to the bottom of like, this whole, you know, saga and see where we are. But for people that are listening now that do not follow you, that have not heard this story, can we start at the beginning and talk about, you know, your platform has become really big, but how and what's going on?

[Amy Nelson]

Yes, absolutely. It's a six year story. So it is a long one. Yeah.

[Rachel Yukatel]

So first start with can you tell me a little bit about your family? I know you have, you have four kids.

[Amy Nelson]

Yeah, I have four girls.

[Rachel Yukatel]

I know gorgeous daughters. But that's a lot. I have one and it's a lot. So that, that's gotta be a lot.

[Amy Nelson]

It is a lot. Yeah. So I was a litigator for a decade and my husband was in commercial real estate and we ended up moving from the Midwest to Seattle where we got married and had four girls in under five years, which is like, wild. And during that period of time, my husband was building data centers for Amazon. So data centers are where the Internet lives. We always hear about the cloud, but the Internet actually lives in these really big warehouses all across the world. And I think more of us understand that now because I think data centers are becoming more of a known topic as AI grows exponentially. Right. But my husband, you know, he's not an engineer, he's not on the, on the science side of things. He's a real estate guy. And while he worked at Amazon, he decided that he wanted to build his own company and go out and do real estate development for a bunch of different companies. And his employment contract allowed him to do that. So he set up his company, he took investment, he left, and then he started building his own company. And a year after that, the FBI knocked on our door.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Amazing. So let's back up for a second. Explain what his job was specifically because I think it's hard for people to understand when you think of Amazon, they think of what we get in packages every day and you don't really know what goes on behind it. So explain what his job was specifically and what that portion of Amazon is.

[Amy Nelson]

So there's actually a part of Amazon, it's a subsidiary of Amazon. So it's not at all related to the retail business like how we use Amazon, how we buy things online. And it's called Amazon Web Services. And it was started in the mid aughts around 2006, 2007. And what they do is they build, they go find land and they build data centers that they own or they work with real estate developers to build data centers that Amazon will then lease. And within those data centers you can buy space to run your Internet for your company. Amazon built it because they needed it, right? Like they were consuming so much. It's called like instances on the Internet that they needed. It made more fiscal sense for them to build their own. But lots of other companies need this too. So they were able to build it as a business. So they sell Internet space to tons of other businesses.

[Rachel Yukatel]

But part of it is like they're having their in house. Real estate agents buy land to build this on. Is that kind of what it was?

[Amy Nelson]

Yeah. So they're, they're not, they're not agents. And like it's very different from kind of house how, like residential real estate. But they go, their real estate experts will go and they find land where these data centers can be built. And the reason that's important is because data centers can only be built on certain type of land. You have to have water, power, fiber. If you, if you look at where they are around the world, they're often close to airports because that's like, they already have the fiber, the communications. It's really important. In the United States, the biggest pocket of data centers is in Northern Virginia, which is where the federal government is. It's like where kind of like all the federal government agencies are.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Okay.

[Amy Nelson]

And so. So it's really. It's only particular pieces of land that can be used to build data centers. And so you have to really be able to. And then the other part is that the land has to be zoned to be a place where data centers can be built. That's a whole other process. So these. These real estate experts are working with local governments, they're working with people who live on the land currently. Like, will you sell your land? You know, also, there's a bunch of different pieces to it.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Okay, and so how long had your husband worked for Amazon?

[Amy Nelson]

So he joined Amazon in 2012. So he had been there. He worked there for seven years.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Okay, and at what point did you guys start to realize that there was a problem?

[Amy Nelson]

When the FBI knocked on her door.

[Rachel Yukatel]

So before that there was no inclination?

[Amy Nelson]

No. Wow.

[Rachel Yukatel]

And he was still working there?

[Amy Nelson]

No, he left. So he left. So he started, he set up his company, which again, he was allowed to do in his employment contract, and then he left in June of 2019. And he was building, you know, he was working on real estate development. He was rezoning land for use for data centers. He was talking to Amazon, he was talking to Microsoft. He was talking to a bunch of different people who need, you know, who needed land for data centers. And we had. Did not think there was any problem until, quite literally, the FBI knocked on our door.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Got it. So can you break down what it exactly Amazon accused him of?

[Amy Nelson]

Yes. So Amazon accused him of a crime called private sector honest services fraud. So they said, I know you probably never.

[Rachel Yukatel]

What does that even mean?

[Amy Nelson]

Well, it's. It's actually, it's a really bizarre law because it's basically your private employer is allowed to go to the DOJ and say that their employee criminally violated the company's employment terms. And the problem with this law is that, like, what is allowed at Amazon might not be allowed at Netflix. And so you would be violating the law doing Action X if you worked at Netflix. But it's permitted at Amazon, and that's not how the law is supposed to work. It's literally allowing private companies to rewrite federal criminal law, which is, like, just not how the law works. And so they accused him of criminally violating his Employment contract and non compete. And so, you know, they said that he couldn't have started his company while he worked at Amazon. He couldn't have taken investment. And the only way they would characterize that money is if it was like a kickback. Like he had purposely sent deals when he worked at Amazon to a certain real estate developer in exchange to get a kickback, and then he used that money to start his own company. But, you know, when Amazon accused him of this crime, they didn't even know. You know, they didn't, they didn't, they really didn't have all the facts. What happened is that someone sent an anonymous email to Jeff Bezos and said that my husband had taken $50 million in kickbacks. And then Amazon did not ask my husband what happened. They did not investigate. Like, they did not speak to him. They just went to the FBI.

[Rachel Yukatel]

So up until this point where your house got raided, you guys were not contacted, There was no lawyer involved that you got that was speaking on your behalf. You literally woke up and the FBI was there.

[Amy Nelson]

Yep, that's exactly what happened. And yeah, and it was. I mean, there's so many wild pieces to it. But it was April 2, 2020. So it was two weeks into the pandemic. So it was 6:45am I walked, I was like, I had my baby on my hip, she was about eight months old. And I heard a knock at the door and I walked downstairs and we had a glass door and there were two people standing there in like khakis and navy blue jackets and. But I couldn't see the back, so I didn't know what the jacket said. And I kind of shrugged at them, like, what? Like, why are you here? And in my mind, I was like, was there a public health crisis overnight because of the pandemic? Like, what's happened? And they flashed their FBI badges. And so I opened the door and I was like, how can I help you? And they said, we'd like to speak to your husband. So I yelled for him and he came down and I said to him, like, you really can't speak to these people without a lawyer. Which is something. If anybody takes anything away from the show at all, like, that is the thing to take away. Never speak to any law enforcement without a lawyer. And they handed us two letters, one telling my husband that he was the target of a federal criminal investigation being run out of Virginia, so across the country, and that they intended to seize all of our money.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Wow. I mean, so how did you guys handle that? What happened was he, like, what is going on? Were you angry at him saying, like, what is happening here?

[Amy Nelson]

No, I was never angry at him because, like, I knew about. I knew. I assumed I knew, and I was correct. Like, everything about his business and his work. And so I was kind of more like, what in the hell is this? And the letter about seizing the money was quite terrifying because even though I'd been a lawyer, I didn't know about this process called civil forfeiture. And in America, the government can seize your assets based on the suspicion that they're connected to a crime, basically until.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Until it goes to trial or until you're found innocent. Is that what you mean?

[Amy Nelson]

Yeah. They don't have to charge you? They don't have to charge you. They can take your money and not charge you with a crime. My husband's ultimately never charged with any crime. Right, but they took all of our money.

[Rachel Yukatel]

They froze it. Is that what you mean?

[Amy Nelson]

Or. They didn't freeze it. They took it. They took it out of our bank accounts. Wow.

[Rachel Yukatel]

So, okay, hold on. I want to get to that, because there's so many pieces to this, and it's so confusing, but when you heard this, did your husband go and get a lawyer? And then did you guys have conversations and was this friendly fire? Were you like, I mean, how did this play out in the days when you first heard about it?

[Amy Nelson]

Yeah. So, I mean, it was. It was absolutely terrifying. Like, I'll level set with that because you're, you know, you're immediately like, I practiced civil law. I knew nothing about federal criminal law. And I go on the Internet and I Google, like, target letter. And I read that, like, if you receive a target letter, you're getting indicted for a federal crime within the next 30 to 60 days. Like, if they've decided you committed a crime, this is happening. And then you read that, like, 98% of time in a federal trial, the government wins, and it costs millions of dollars.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Yeah.

[Amy Nelson]

This is like the unraveling that I figure out in the first couple of minutes. And then I called some friends of mine that I knew had practiced white collar law, because it's white collar criminal law. And you kind of get into the process of it, which is you hire a lawyer, they reach out to the doj, and they say, what's going on? And in my husband's case, he was not the main target. So it seemed that the government really wanted the real estate developer that they said had paid kickbacks to my husband. They wanted that guy. He was the top of the Totem pole. So they were willing to talk to

[Rachel Yukatel]

us and they were hoping your husband would give some information and be a witness for them or something.

[Amy Nelson]

Well, yes, but in their mindset, my husband had received kickbacks, and so he was guilty of a crime. So it wasn't like there was no, like, you just need to be a witness. It was like, you need to plead guilty. And if you don't plead guilty, we're going to take you to trial and put you in prison for a very long time. And my husband, you know, was very much like, I have. I don't even know, like, what is the criminal theory? What is happening here? Our lawyers are very confused. Like, everyone was like, what. What is the theory here? But there's just a lot of back and forth and meetings with the doj. And it was clear the DOJ had a version of the story and that they were sticking to that version of the story. And we kept even asking, like, do you have the employment contract? Like, do you know what. Carl. My husband's name is Carl. Do you know what his employment terms are? If you're saying he criminally violated them. And they just ignored us. And we found out a long time after that that they never even had the contract. They never asked Amazon for it. They never asked if my husband was authorized or allowed to do what they said was a crime.

[Rachel Yukatel]

So can you explain why didn't Amazon come you and instead it was the government? Or was it both?

[Amy Nelson]

So it ultimately was both, but I can't explain. And we figured this all out over time and over court filings. Like, these were things we didn't understand in the moment. But we later learned that Amazon, after these allegations were made in an anonymous email, helped another business break a real estate contract with that developer. The one that they was their main target. He owned a bunch of. He was developing data centers. And Amazon helped to break a contract that that man had for half a billion dollars. And the only way that that contract could be broken without paying damages to the developer or, you know, like, or following the rules if the developer pled guilty or was convicted of a felony crime.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Okay?

[Amy Nelson]

And so instead of suing the man that they believed had, like, you know, broken the contract, they wrote, they kicked him out of the contract secretly on February 19, 2020. And they had their first meeting with federal prosecutors. The next day, Amazon hired a former federal prosecutor from the Eastern District of Virginia to lobby his former colleagues, people he knew. And we got all of the emails between Amazon's lawyers and the doj and It's a wild world to see all these things, because the doj, in writing, told Amazon's lawyer, please don't worry, we've hand selected our very best prosecutors for your client's important matter. And it's like, I remember reading that and thinking, well, who gets the B team? Is it like the Larry Nassar victims? You know, the Olympians, all those girls or the women, you know, victimized by Jeffrey Epstein? Like, is that who gets the B team? But if Jeff Bezos calls up, you get the A team, Right?

[Rachel Yukatel]

So now explain what that looked like for you guys legally. So your money is taken. Not only frozen, but taken. I mean, are you talking about to the dollar? I mean, is that legal? How could you survive with a family of six?

[Amy Nelson]

Yeah, they took everything. So they even took money that my husband. So they came that day and gave us the two letters. And then, you know, they gave my husband the opportunity to plead guilty. And when my husband said, I'm not pleading guilty to something that didn't happen, they said, okay. And then. Then they took all of our money. So it's kind of like they have all these tools to use, right? And they didn't just take our money. They took. They took my husband and paid money to his lawyers, and they went into the lawyer's bank account and took that money. So they literally took everything and to the dollar. And

[Rachel Yukatel]

I don't even understand how that's legal. I mean, is it because they're the government, they could do whatever they want. I mean, I don't even know how they would figure out what had been given to the lawyers. And did the lawyers not create a huge, outrageous argument to them doing this?

[Amy Nelson]

They did. The lawyers did. And so to that end, the DOJ returned to the lawyers money they had already billed. Okay, but otherwise, there's the crazy thing about civil forfeiture in America, is that when the government takes your money or your assets, like, they could take your car or your house, you are then responsible for hiring a lawyer to pay, to fight, to prove that asset's innocence. And there's no due process. Like, there isn't criminal law, because the legal action is against a bank account or a car.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Right.

[Amy Nelson]

They don't have the same right to due process that you and I do as humans. And so, like, when they took the money, we asked if we could have some money to feed our kids. And I'll never forget this day because a federal prosecutor, who I knew was also a mother, said that my husband could have money back to feed his Children if he would plead guilty.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Wow. So. But I don't even understand. Did you have to go move in with one of your parents? Like, I mean, if you have all of a sudden no money. And by the way, did you really have, did you have 50 million dol dollars in your bank account that they.

[Amy Nelson]

No, of course not. It's like, it's insane. Right? Like it's. Oh my God. So no, we had under a million dollars. Right. Like, and we were, you know, like 40 year old professionals with graduate degrees. Like it, you know, we were not. There was not an enormous sum of money. It's a lot.

[Rachel Yukatel]

So the accusation of $50 million in kickbacks was just ridiculous to begin with.

[Amy Nelson]

Completely ridiculous. And so we, yeah, I mean we had to. We sold our home, so. Which we'd worked so hard to buy.

[Rachel Yukatel]

And how did you keep that as an asset? Like how did you keep the money from that?

[Amy Nelson]

Well, I mean, we were worried that when we sold it they would take it. But you know, the allegation like the period of allegations of my husband's wrongdoing started after the time we bought our house. So we're like, well, we think and we had to take it, we had to take a risk. We're like, well, we're just going to do this. Like we're going to sell the house and see what happens. Because we had to pay lawyers.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Right.

[Amy Nelson]

And while our family was amazing and took us all in, they didn't have money to give us. So it's like kind of dead in the water if you didn't have money to pay lawyers.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Wait, so did you sell your house quickly? I mean, on a day to day, like if somebody took all the money out of my bank account of myself and my husband today, I don't know how I would handle taking care of my daughter and the three dogs. And then there's things that you have to pay to maintain lifestyle. Paying for school, paying to put gas in your car to get them to school. I don't know. But all those little things that you don't even think of are immediate things you have to do to do, otherwise your whole family falls apart.

[Amy Nelson]

Yeah. So luckily at the time my husband and I were both working and so like I had, I was a CEO of a startup, so I was making money. And then my husband had consulting projects through his company. And until all the allegations were made very public by Amazon, he kept those consulting contracts. So we were making money. So like we were just living on what we were making, but they weren't

[Rachel Yukatel]

going in and taking out that money that would come in monthly? Or did you have to take it out in cash just because you were nervous that they were going to take it?

[Amy Nelson]

We opened new bank accounts.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Got it.

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[Amy Nelson]

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[Amy Nelson]

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[Amy Nelson]

that's what our lawyers told us to do. They're like, open new bank accounts and put your paychecks in the new bank accounts, which all of this, like, you feel like a criminal.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Of course.

[Amy Nelson]

You feel like you're like, oh, my God, what am I doing?

[Rachel Yukatel]

Were you worried that they would find those bank accounts and remove their money?

[Amy Nelson]

Worried about everything. I was constantly worried. Right. And so we were able to stay in our house for about four months. And then it was very clear. I said to my husband, I was like, we have to sell the house. Like, we can't. We can't keep paying the lawyers. Because once he lost his consulting contracts, it was like, I can't carry the lawyer's fees and the mortgage and, you know, everything. So we sold our house, and we stayed with my sister in California for a while, and then we stayed with my husband's parents. And then we stayed with my parents.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Wow.

[Amy Nelson]

The kids were just. We had to. We lived in Seattle. My oldest was starting kindergarten. She was in a private school. We had to immediately take her out of the school. We had to get rid of childcare. It was, you know, the cost of all of that was completely disruptive. Right. And again, this is. You're just. You're not charged with a crime. There are no criminal charges. Right. You're just accused of something.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Right. So at this point, I mean, that would have enraged me. I mean, especially preventing your kid from going to the school you had worked to get her in or, you know, any of those little things. I mean, they're huge things, but they all add up. And the aggravation of having to move and be a burden on somebody, even if they're your family, I mean, that is a lot. I'm assuming this had a huge toll on your relationship with not only your family, but with your husband.

[Amy Nelson]

Yeah, I would say it's interesting. People ask that a lot. And it's kind of like we were in such survival mode for so long that there really wasn't. We didn't think about our relationship. It was kind of like we were going to battle, and we were just. That's. That was what we were doing.

[Rachel Yukatel]

So did you feel like a team? Like, I mean, listen, here you are out having this platform, talking about it. I don't know him. I haven't seen him out here talking about it. And it happened to him. I mean, it happened to all of you. But how does he feel about you being so vocal about it all?

[Amy Nelson]

So my husband's very private. And before I start. Before this battle, I was, you know, I had a startup. I raised 30 million in venture capital. I was a columnist for Forbes. I was speaking on stage at, like, Fortune's Most Powerful Women. So I was very out there. But. So I was obviously comfortable being out there. But we were quiet for a year about everything that was happening. And I think we may have remained quiet if we thought that made sense in a lot of ways. But I think kind of two things happened. About 10 months into this battle, I was offered a job by a public tech company. It was a role they created for me as a vice president. It was a million dollars a year between salary and equity. And I was like, I've saved my family. I've done it. We can, you know, And I was heartbroken to give up my company, but it was what had to be done. And I didn't think a lot about how I felt about things. I was like, I'm just doing them.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Yeah.

[Amy Nelson]

And then on the fifth day of my new job, my boss called me onto a zoom, and HR was there, and they fired me because they read an article about my husband's legal issues. And I was like. I mean, I was floored because they were like, well, you should have disclosed this. And I said, well, you're not legally allowed to ask me if I'm married. Why should I disclose that my husband's an illegal, you know, issue? Because at the time, he was just, like, in. In a lawsuit with Amazon, because after my husband didn't plead guilty, Amazon sued him. And they. But they just. They were like, you're fired. And I was like, okay. At that point, I was like, it doesn't matter if I'm quiet or if I'm loud. Like, I. My career is going to be hit by this, right? So I would rather speak out and tell the truth and not be afraid of it than not. Than be quiet.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Right.

[Amy Nelson]

And the second thing was, you know, I kind of. I was looking at my girls and I was like, there's this whole narrative being written about what their dad did. And I have no idea how this is going to end, but I want them to know that I did everything I could.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Yeah. So what was the narrative then that, that Amazon started or the government started to put out? What were they talking about?

[Amy Nelson]

Yeah, so, you know, in a very like, clever way, after my husband wouldn't plead guilty, Amazon sued him and they sued him in a public complaint that anybody could read. And so they wrote the narrative.

[Rachel Yukatel]

So this, that was different than what the government was talking to you guys about. So this was a separate. I mean it all t. But it was the first time.

[Amy Nelson]

Yeah, exact same thing. But once, you know, once Amazon realized shit, the government can't get the job done for us right now and we have to sue them, they wrote like a 50 page complaint with 100 exhibits. And you know, it was very, it was very sensational. It was like these guys steered deals in exchange for kickbacks. They're very bad people. And that was out in the public and that was.

[Rachel Yukatel]

How many people were they implicating besides your husband?

[Amy Nelson]

Probably like 8. A huge group of people.

[Rachel Yukatel]

And where. What happened to these eight or these seven other people?

[Amy Nelson]

Oh, that's super interesting. Like on the one hand, they eventually implicated my husband's business attorney who was like 55, not making any money other than just the money he was paid to be a lawyer. But because my husband had a business lawyer and like he reviewed my husband's contract and said everything was okay, like the government and Amazon had to say, like the, the lawyer was criming because otherwise, you know, it would. My husband could go and as a defense and say, I obviously thought everything that I did in setting up my company was okay because I had a lawyer who told me it was right. So they implicated the lawyer and then they went after a lot of people who didn't work at Amazon and didn't know Amazon's employment terms but had done business with my husband. And they told those men, like, you helped Carl violate the honest services he owed to Amazon. And four of those men pled guilty to helping my husband violate his honest services. After we fought for years, those guilty pleas were vacated by the Department of Justice. And to give you a sense of how often that happens, it doesn't like, there was a New York Times article about another general, Michael Flynn. Who is it? A figure we've probably all heard of. The DOJ vacated his plea and the New York Times went and asked like 15 former federal prosecutors. Have you ever seen the DOJ vacate a plea? And they all said no. So this doesn't. I mean, what happened was unprecedented, like, in American legal history. But the DOJ was like, we can't rightfully let these people plead guilty because they said they helped my husband violate his honest services to Amazon. But we proved to the government that. But in fact, my husband was completely authorized by a simple employment contract to do what Amazon said was a crime.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Right. So that's where I think it gets confusing. So he was never actually. What are the words that I'm looking for?

[Amy Nelson]

He was never charged with anything.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Okay, so he was never charged with a crime, but he was accused of it. And then what happened? How did you guys get to this point? Where were you able to get your money back yet?

[Amy Nelson]

So we got. We ended up getting back after two years. We ended up getting back 85% of our money. But.

[Rachel Yukatel]

And it just. But how were they like, okay, we're going to release it now?

[Amy Nelson]

No, it was like this. This is like a complicated legal maneuvering. But when they sue. When they took the money and then they didn't charge my husband, they had to sue the money. I'd, like, sue the bank account. Okay? So the government did that. So they sued the bank account in federal court. And we were like, we want to fight this. We want to litigate. Like, we wanted to, you know, fight that. That lawsuit. But the DOJ kept going to the judge and saying, we're not ready to fight this lawsuit. There's an active criminal investigation. Like, give us a little bit of time. And so the judge gave them two years. And then finally the judge was like, okay, doj, you've got to prove this or give them their money back.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Do they give you interest?

[Amy Nelson]

God, no. No, they gave us back 85%. And so then we were like. The government was like, well, will you just settle with us? And we were dying on the vine. Like, we were trying to pay lawyers to fight the Amazon lawsuit, trying to feed our kids. And we were like, we'll take. And, you know, we're like, we'll take back 85% now. And they were like, fine, we'll give you 85%. The lawsuit's over. They didn't have to prove the lawsuit. And, you know, it's one of those things, people like, why did you settle and get back 85%? And you're like, well, if you needed to feed your kids, like, what would you do? Right, right. You know, they don't give you interest. There's never, I mean, just at the end of all this, like, there's never an apology. There's never an explanation. There's no justice. It's like a lot of. A lot of the criminal system in America. If you're accused, the goal is to mitigate damages and survive because it's not really a very fair process.

[Rachel Yukatel]

So essentially, though, what happened? Did the criminal case completely collapse? Like, what.

[Amy Nelson]

So what happened is, and this is really interesting, and I think such a strategic misstep by Amazon, because, you know, I told you Amazon sued everybody after they realized the government wasn't getting all the guilty pleas that they wanted. And we forced that case into discovery, which is exchanging facts, and we kept forcing that case forward, which I think Amazon never thought would happen, because they thought, oh, we know these guys have no money. There's no way they're going to be able to do this. But we did. And through that process, we showed that my husband's employment contract authorized the conduct Amazon said was illegal. And so after that, so after we proved that and a federal judge agreed with us in a civil case, then the DOJ was like, okay, I don't think we have a path here.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Got it.

[Amy Nelson]

But we still had to convince the DOJ that there was no. Like, they kind of like, once they dig their heels in, they're going.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Right.

[Amy Nelson]

Like, I mean, I get it.

[Rachel Yukatel]

You see that all the time, too. Like, they don't even want to admit that they got anything wrong. So what I want people to understand and I want to understand is why do you think they targeted, like, why would such a big company come after your husband and some of these other people when they weren't getting $50 million back? They weren't like, what was the ultimate goal for them?

[Amy Nelson]

Yeah, I think that Amazon made a very brash decision to break a lease for data centers that was worth half a billion dollars, $500 million. And the only way that they could justify making that decision was if the real estate developer on the other side of the contract pled guilty or was convicted of a felony.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Okay.

[Amy Nelson]

Otherwise, they should have gone through a very different channel to break the lease. So they were liable. That real estate developer is now suing Amazon for $2 billion.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Got it. I was going to ask what happened to him. So was he completely discredited and all he can do right now is sue Amazon or where is he?

[Amy Nelson]

I mean, this real estate developer who had a company that was like 20 years old, he had 70 employees all gone. It's all Gone. All of those people lost their jobs. The company is gone. He lost everything, which is really devastating. And not only that, but at the beginning of the lawsuit, Amazon sought an injunction. So they said, you have to. From this guy. They said, you have to put aside $21 million, because we think we're going to win. We're worried your assets are going to be depleted. And the judge agreed with them because based on Amazon's allegations. And so he had to put aside $21 million, but he didn't have $21 million to put aside. So then Amazon got what's called a receiver over his personal and business bank accounts. So a receiver was running his life, and he got, like, $7,500 a month to live on.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Oh, my goodness.

[Amy Nelson]

And then. Yeah. And so for years, a receiver ran his company and billed him for the pleasure. Wow. I mean, it really is like, there's just so many things you can do as a sophisticated legal party with a lot of money to just kind of, like, destroy people before they can even fight back.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Right, right. And that's what's been obvious with you guys. So how did you guys get to where you are now? Like, what? Tell me the process of. So you're in Ohio.

[Amy Nelson]

Yeah.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Okay.

[Amy Nelson]

So it was. Yeah, we ended up in Ohio because my parents live here, and we lived with. And we moved in with them. Okay. And, you know, we've rebuilt a lot since then, but. But that's like.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Are you renting a home now? Are you still living with them?

[Amy Nelson]

No, we have our own home. This has been six years, and I have been able to work throughout it, and my husband is working. And now, again, he was able to rebuild his career, which is a remarkable testament to his expertise.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Well, how did you do that? Because taking away that kind of credibility in such a detrimental way would seem very hard to get over. I mean, I'm shocked that you guys are able Even to. To start rebuilding at this early stage.

[Amy Nelson]

Yeah. You know, my husband, I think he was one of the first real estate experts in data centers. And that industry is just growing and growing and growing, and people recognize his expertise. And I think over the years, as we were very public with the story and as we kept winning every legal battle, I think people realized, like, oh, obviously this isn't true.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Right.

[Amy Nelson]

And it's one thing, like, that's a really interesting thing about, like, having gone public with it, because a lot of people, you deal a lot. I mean, your show is a lot of people who are dealing with crisis. And, like, I know that you probably do some consulting and advising in that world. And I think the old. The old piece of advice in a crisis was to be quiet, keep your head down. You know, like, keep going. Let it blow over. And now, like, I don't think that's even an option in this world because someone's gonna tell the story. Like, yeah, whether it's.

[Rachel Yukatel]

I think that people don't understand that in what you just said. I think you still read about a scandal all. Whether it's a reality show scandal or a very serious one, like you guys were in. And a lot of people are like, they talk about going to a crisis manager or PR company and they all say, disappear. Don't talk, don't answer. And to me, I think that is the absolute wrong advice to be giving. Sometimes you can't say certain things for legal reasons, and you're, you know, there's a gag order or whatever. But if you can get your version out and you can just be honest, then it's much better. Because in the absence of your voice, some sort of truth is given in there that's not tr. And it's just, you know, it's really difficult for people to come back after that. You know, the narrative has already been painted for them because then it's just like you're saying your version and it isn't what we all have heard. And so people just think you're making that shit up. And so I always tell people, you have to come out at the beginning as much as you can even to admit. Okay, wait a minute. This is why I think I got myself into this situation. This is what I did wrong, and I trusted the wrong people or I said the wrong thing or, yes, in this situation. I know. Realize that this was probably not something I should have done, but this big accusation is completely out of this world. And that kind of thing is what I would say to people.

[Amy Nelson]

Completely. I completely agree with you and think it's the smartest thing on earth. I go back to this past year, the Coldplay concert.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Yeah, right. I know what you're gonna say, and I totally agree. It was so stupid for them. Yeah. And then this woman comes out. Kristen, is that her name? Comes out and does this interview with. And I don't think it did her any justice because people were, you know, she was saying how she was getting a divorce and so was he or something. And everyone was like, well, then why did you act so scared about the whole thing?

[Amy Nelson]

I know.

[Rachel Yukatel]

And now she wants to do standup. You know, she wants to be a speaker on, you know, being vilified and having a stigma. But I don't know that she handled any of it appropriately.

[Amy Nelson]

So, I mean, I agree with you. And it's like, if she had said something in the first 24 hours.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Yeah.

[Amy Nelson]

The whole thing would have been different. And the other thing is, by the time she did the Oprah interview, you know, our culture, we're, like, moving on.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Yeah.

[Amy Nelson]

Like, you know, it's like, so. And it's just. It makes no sense. And I think that a lot of people, a lot of lawyers would have told me not to speak out publicly while my husband was under criminal investigation. Right. Because, you know, anything you say can be used against you. Yeah. But we very much knew the facts and we knew the truth. And so speaking out wasn't scary.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Right.

[Amy Nelson]

Like, that part of it wasn't scary. It's like, we know what happened.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Right.

[Amy Nelson]

And you may think it was shady or, you know, my husband should have done something different. That's fine for you to think that, but my husband's contract that Amazon wrote authorized him to start his business. Yeah. And the law works that you can't sue people because you just don't like something that happened. Like, that's not how the law works. And so you can't put people in prison for that.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Right.

[Amy Nelson]

And so I think it's like, I think you have to be brave and step out and tell the story. And, you know, for me, too, like, when I decided to tell the story, I had probably, like, 30,000 Instagram followers, but reels weren't really a thing on Instagram yet, and I didn't have any followers on TikTok. And. But I sensed very much this was like a video, this was a story that people would understand if I told them.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Yeah.

[Amy Nelson]

Not if I, like, wrote it on Twitter or whatever. And so I just kind of, like, watched TikTok for a few months and then dove in and started making videos. And I was really shocked that. I mean, people tuned in, like, millions of people tuned into some things that are, like, kind of complicated legal issues. But what they understood, I think what people understood, the big takeaway, was like, you guys are getting screwed by a big company who has is paying 50 lawyers $1,000 an hour to hunt you down.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Right.

[Amy Nelson]

And they're trying to use the FBI to put you in prison.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Yeah. And that's what I think is so crazy. To what end? Like, why would Jeff Bezos need to do this? Do you actually think that Jeff Bezos even knows this situation? In detail.

[Amy Nelson]

Yes, I do. I don't know if he knows it in detail because I think there's this whole thing around billionaire, and I've worked for some billionaires that eventually these people get to a place where they surround themselves with yes. And not the truth. And I think it's like the downfall of so many billionaires because they're so detached from reality and the facts and what is real and true in the world. And I think that's definitely happened to Jeff Bezos, but I know that he knows about it. And I think the other thing that's like, really, I don't know if this is tragic about all of this, but we lived in Seattle and I had a startup that was very public facing. I raised a bunch of venture capital money from the same fund that was the first money into Amazon.com and so like the first man, Tom Alberg, who bet on me, was the first man who bet on Jeff Bezos. And so, like, when this all happened, I reached out to Tom and to his credit, he was incredibly kind and wrote an email to Amazon's general counsel, David Sapolsky, who also knows me personally. Like their head lawyer knows me, knows I have kids. Kids. And like, Tom wrote a letter and saying, can you just talk to them? And David Zapolsky refused to.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Wow.

[Amy Nelson]

Which is so cowardly and just disappointing and to this day won't speak to me. But, like, I think they dug their heels in. They decided something had happened, it had been public, and they didn't want to step back and say we were wrong.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Right.

[Amy Nelson]

And I also think there's the issue of this half a billion dollar contract breach, which is a pretty big deal.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Right. So.

[Amy Nelson]

But then if I were Amazon, I would like be blaming the lawyers.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Sure.

[Amy Nelson]

Who guided me to breach that contract without a conviction. Because the contract said, you can kick this guy out if he is convicted or pleads guilty to a felony. Not if you accuse him of one. Right. Like, that's basic, you know, basic layering.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Where.

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[Rachel Yukatel]

Where do we stand now?

[Amy Nelson]

So where we stand now is, you know, we moved to Ohio, where I'm from, because my parents were here to live with them and we have kind of like built, we've built a life here. Our kids are in their fourth year of school here, so this is kind of this home to them. Now my husband and I are both working and we are still kind of dealing with the fallout of all of this. Like, we are still enmeshed in the civil case of the Amazon.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Okay, that's what I wanted to ask. So not only the credibility that you've had to rebuild and the financials that you've had to rebuild and a whole life you've had to rebuild, but criminally or civilly, like, talk about who's suing who and what's happening.

[Amy Nelson]

So the criminal investigation ended years ago.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Okay.

[Amy Nelson]

Which is wonderful. And like, you know it.

[Rachel Yukatel]

How does that work? Can they ever come back? Because it was just dropped. Right.

[Amy Nelson]

So they call. So In January of 2024, they vacated the last two pleas. So the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia went to the judge and she said, we have to vacate these pleas. They're not in the interest of justice, which is like a very big thing to do. And then the day that happened, a prosecutor from Virginia called the attorney of one of the targets and he's the real estate developer. And the prosecutor said to the attorney, like, we had a lot of meetings about this. We know this is the right thing to do. It's over. And so then that was over. We have since like, you know, asked the DOJ to return the rest of our money or I don't know, maybe like investigate Amazon's lawyers for lying to the DOJ and causing a four year witch hunt and can't get any traction or movement on that front, which is so disappointing.

[Rachel Yukatel]

And where do we think the rest of your money is? Like, who has it?

[Amy Nelson]

I really have no idea. I've asked. I asked the prosecutor that. I was like, where is our money? And he hasn't responded, I have no idea.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Do you think there's a world where all of a sudden it'll be returned?

[Amy Nelson]

I mean, I think that would be the just and right thing to do. Yeah. Right. I mean, it's. I don't know.

[Rachel Yukatel]

But that's something that the government has to release. Not Amazon.

[Amy Nelson]

Right? Something the government has to release.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Okay, and where do you stand with Amazon?

[Amy Nelson]

So we beat. We Amazon sued my husband for mafia racketeering. And they also said that my husband single handedly controlled land prices on the eastern seaboard of the U.S. they sold. They sued him for Monopoly. Oh, I know, Unbelievable. Like, like my husband's really talented, but I don't think he's that talented. So they dropped that claim. But there's an ongoing civil lawsuit with Amazon. We did win it. And then Amazon appealed And then the 4th Circuit sent it back down.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Not when you say win it. Did they won it meaning it got thrown out or won it that you had claims against them.

[Amy Nelson]

So before you go to trial in a civil case, you can file what's called a motion for summary judgment saying we don't need to take this to trial. The judge can decide all of these issues before a trial because it's so clear.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Okay, got it.

[Amy Nelson]

And we won. The judge wrote a 40 page opinion saying Amazon had said they had, you know, millions of dollars in damages, meaning

[Rachel Yukatel]

it should just be thrown out and it doesn't need to go out.

[Amy Nelson]

They have no damages.

[Rachel Yukatel]

But you haven't gone to sue them.

[Amy Nelson]

We have sued them, but I'll finish this. So Amazon appealed our victory and the appellate court said, oh, send it back down like it should go to trial. So now we're still battling Amazon on that front. We have sued Amazon in Washington state and we've already won part of it, but the damages won't be decided until this other lawsuit is over.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Got it.

[Amy Nelson]

So like we're just continually having to figure out how to pay lawyers and navigate this thing. And something very crazy happened after they vacated, after the DOJ vacated the pleas. One of the men who had pled guilty, his name is Kyle Ramstetter and he was Amazon's like star witness and the government's star witness. After his plea was vacated, he found me on TikTok and he called me and he said to me, your husband did nothing wrong. I was threatened with everything in my life. I was told what to say. And so he is now like, he's I think, gonna sit for like another deposition in the civil case and explain what happened, which will Be very interesting. And the thing I have to say, like, to both, you know, Amazon and DOJ and everyone, like, if the law is a search for the truth, this truth matters very much. Like, who told Kyle Ramsetter what to say? What did they threaten him with? And so I'm really interested in that.

[Rachel Yukatel]

That's a really good point. And so how do you think this is gonna play out? Has the media taken a hold of what your platform has been talking about and have they started to build the narration around that and give you guys a platform to talk more about this?

[Amy Nelson]

Well, that's a whole other, like, can of worms. Which is really interesting because when you think about the power of Amazon, Amazon is the largest purchaser of ads in the global media. And so you'll notice you've never seen in any legacy newspaper any sort of like, deep dive into Jeff Bezos or Amazon's kind of ruthless business practices. And you won't because they fund the media. And so there have been a number of stories written, but no one's done kind of like a big investigation of the whole thing or really said, like, what did Amazon do wrong here?

[Rachel Yukatel]

Right, right.

[Amy Nelson]

And how could this affect other people? Because we're not the only, you know, Politico a while ago wrote an article about how Amazon had referred over 75 federal criminal cases to DOJ of like, vendors, third party sellers, employees. Like, a lot of people, like, they're doing this. Like, this is a strategy of theirs to go to doj.

[Rachel Yukatel]

So I guess my question is like, how do you guys ever get out of this? This seems like terrible and it's ongoing.

[Amy Nelson]

That's what my mom always worries about. My mom is like, this is going to go on beyond my life, which is so tragic. Right. I mean, I think at a certain

[Rachel Yukatel]

point, especially if you're paying lawyers. Sorry to interrupt you, but the money eventually runs out. I mean, at this point I would think that you guys could be suing for a huge amount of damages. So I wish that you could find a lawyer who would just take this on contingency or whatever and get paid that way.

[Amy Nelson]

I mean, I wish we could too, but the issue with like contingent lawyers going up against Amazon is they're like, they're going to throw $100 million at this, which I think, I think Amazon has spent over $100 million on lawyers to come after my family. And so contingent lawyers are like, are you up for a seven year legal battle? And you know, because they are, they are paying for it. Yeah, but you know, we do have our one lawsuit against Amazon. And I do think, like, I think it will end. I mean, we'll, we're scheduled for trial in November and, like, that is an ending. Right? We're not afraid to go to trial. I, I am, like, I am shocked as to, like, why Amazon thinks they can go to trial. Like, their star witness has said he was coerced and that my husband did nothing wrong. The DOJ who investigated this for four years, who has a much greater subpoena power than Amazon does. Like they said, nothing happened here.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Right.

[Amy Nelson]

And in fact, so, so much of nothing happened. We have to vacate these pleasures. But, you know, these guys just are going for it.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Is there a world in which before November, Amazon could come to you and say, let's just settle?

[Amy Nelson]

Sure. They could do that. At any point for you to settle,

[Rachel Yukatel]

would it be like, oh, you have to give a statement that nothing ever happened? Would you have to, they would have to pay you, like, what in your mind?

[Amy Nelson]

I don't know. That's a question I'd have to, like, run down with my husband. I don't know. But I don't think Amazon's at a place where they think they would do that. I think they're like, heels dug in. We're going to prove that we're right somehow, which is not, you know, and that's why I go back to, like, what is the search for the truth.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Yeah, right.

[Amy Nelson]

Like, you, like, it doesn't seem like they want to prove the truth. It seems they want to prove that they're right to cut their legal liability for breaking that contract.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Right. What do you think has happened with your husband's department at Amazon now? Have new people come in? Have they changed the employment rules for these people that now do that?

[Amy Nelson]

So there are still some of the same people there. Most people have left. They have changed the employment contract. That's a really great question. Like, one of the things, after they kind of had to concede that my husband's employment contract authorized this, then Amazon was like, but our code of conduct says there shouldn't be conflicts of interest or whatever. It's like, okay, but the code of conduct is not a contract. It can't override it. But Amazon has very sneakily, like, changed their employment contract to weave in the code of conduct now for new people,

[Rachel Yukatel]

which should help you in a trial going forward because that's an admission of that their employment contract wasn't written the way they wanted it to be so

[Amy Nelson]

that everybody understood the judge already agrees with us. On that.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Yeah.

[Amy Nelson]

So that part was like not overturned on appeal. Like the law of the case. Like what we're going to trial with is that Amazon is taking my husband to trial with a legal ruling that the employment contract that they wrote authorized him to do what they're trying to say was racketeering. Yeah, it makes, it's very confusing and makes no sense. Right.

[Rachel Yukatel]

So. All right, let's talk about currently. So you still have this platform, you're still talking about this like all the time. But we're seeing Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez all over this whole new Met Gala thing and the fact that they've basically bought themselves into fashion. And also there's a ton of talk. I just had a guy on my show last week talking about how Met Gala is not what it used to be. And people were paying $350 for a table or 75,000 for a ticket. And no one wants to pay that anymore and no one is really going. And they're having to figure out how to bring in more people. So what do you think is happening now that Jeff and Lauren are part of this?

[Amy Nelson]

So I think it's really interesting. And when I think about all of this in the backdrop of what my family's been through in 2020 when this started, like, Jeff Bezos was a very well respected entrepreneur and like, I think he has become sort of like a Lex Luthor character as like a lot of the billionaire tech guys have in America. But I think whereas he wasn't criticized in the public before, he very much is now as kind of like leveraging his wealth to try to, you know, be cool or, you know, be in the mix. I think about, like, I look back to their wedding in Venice and you know, I, I don't know if this is true or not, but think about that. In any other location in the world, we wouldn't have been able to see who was going to the wedding and who was in and out because it would be black cars with blackened windows into a hotel or a home in Venice. They had to get on the boats and they had to be in public to get to this venue. And it's so weird. Did they do it because of that? Because they wanted to be seen? And this Met Gala thing is, is. It's really interesting, like really disappointing of Anna Wintour. And I think of, you know, like the whole of the museum, because I don't, I mean, I just, I think people are kind of over it. They're like. I think a lot of people see Lauren Sanchez Bezos as like an American Marie Antoinette. Right. I mean, and it's weird, right? I don't know if you saw the recent. Was the Wall Street Journal profile or New York Times profile. They're like, well, somebody has to be happy. Why can't Lauren be happy?

[Rachel Yukatel]

Okay.

[Amy Nelson]

I mean, it's just. It's. It's just such a wild world to be flaunting wealth in a time when so few people are able to navigate the current situation. So many people are afraid of losing their lives.

[Rachel Yukatel]

And to be so gluttonous about it, you know, it. I think it makes them unlikable, unfortunately. I mean, I know Lauren. I hosted with Mario Lopez a show and she was, you know, a news person on it or whatever. And so I spent some time with her and she was fun and, you know, interesting. And all of a sudden that. That whole vision that I had of her has kind of changed course because she's a different person. And listen, I get it. She meets this person, she wants to be with him. This is a completely new life for her. But I think they've become really unlikable, unfortunately, because I think it's just now about who they're seen with and what they're doing and how much money and even, you know, remember when the women went into space that totally back. Everybody was like, so upset by it.

[Amy Nelson]

You know, it was like, what was that? It's kind of like things to like, get attention. And I will say Lauren blocked me on Instagram. Oh. Which it's just like, I mean, good for you.

[Rachel Yukatel]

I mean, congratulations.

[Amy Nelson]

I know it's so great, but like, it's like the. No. The CEO of Amazon, Andy Jassy, who took over for Bezos, he has also blocked me on social media.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Oh, my God, I love that for you.

[Amy Nelson]

And I'm just like, guys, like, are you that fragile that you can't take this? Like, I've had to take FBI raids, civil rights for a picture. The complete annihilation of my life. Like, can you take a little bit? And I'm not even. I will say I like, kind of ribbed, like, Lauren and Jeff about the wedding because it was an interesting cultural moment. But, like, I'm just out here on the legal side just presenting court documents and the fact. Yeah, right.

[Rachel Yukatel]

So what's. What's next for you guys? Tell me where. Where you are, what your content is going to hold for the next couple months.

[Amy Nelson]

So I'm definitely doing a pop up series on the Met gala and everything. I'm really curious as to who goes and who supports them. Right. Because that is a statement. If you still go, you're supporting them. It's interesting to me that Lena Dunham is on the organizing committee right now because Lena's having such a moment with Fame Sick. And now she's gonna pop into this event, which is the Billionaire Club, having a big party, essentially. I think that'll be really interesting. And then the content will really focus on the lead up to the trial with Amazon kind of breaking down everything, showing people the kind of bullshit legal maneuvers they keep pulling. And part of why I want to do this is because, you know, listen, I think very few people will experience a legal battle on the scale that my family has. But as you know, there are all sorts of levels of legal battles and every, you know, like. And we're all kind of like one lawsuit away from being destroyed by someone with a lot of power. And so people need to understand how it works.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Yeah. And also, you know, what's, What's. I don't want to say good about your situation, but that you guys are able to do it openly. A lot of people don't. About signing NDAs and having to go, you know, behind the scenes and, you know, you know, really follow NDAs and everything is silent. So the David and Goliath thing, you're completely outnumbered, especially when you have to go to arbitration because you, it's. You. Like, for me, I had to go to arbitration, me and a lawyer against, you know, again, the Goliath and no one. You can't have the court of public opinion. You can't have people helping you. It's just so terrible. And there's no way to win and everything is silenced. And I think that's really hard mentally. People don't understand, especially when you're silenced like that, you know, you put your head on the pillow at night and there's so many demons there because you can't talk about it. You can't talk about what you're going through. So at least you could talk about what you're going through in a way that you can get some public support from people or even navigate, you know, and help you understand what you should be looking at and not looking at.

[Amy Nelson]

And I just want to say about the arbitration issue, I feel like, like some people would ask us why we. Why on earth we settled to get back just 85% of our money. A lot of people will say, like, well, why did you arbitrate? Why did you sign an NDA? A lot of times you have a Contract that forces you to arbitrate so you do not have a choice. Yeah. And then a lot of times when you are dealing with a financial situation, like sometimes it's the only way.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Yeah.

[Amy Nelson]

And I think like in a pie in the sky world where we could all do what we wanted, we wouldn't have to sign NDAs, we wouldn't do this. But you'll notice like I mentioned, I was fired by a tech company in the Valley. I had an arbitration cause and an NDA and so I can't tell you who that was. But you know, and I needed to go through that legal process and you know, earn or take home what I believed I was due to keep my family afloat. Right, right. So like that was more important than me than telling that story publicly.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Yeah.

[Amy Nelson]

With Amazon, they, they, they made the choice to take this public and so I was going to stand in the public and fight back with a bright light.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Yeah. And your current employer is fine with all this?

[Amy Nelson]

I am my own employer. So I, so I have, I mean, but that is something my husband and I talk about a lot because he also works for himself. Like we don't, like we are kind of unhirable, you know, because of this. And that is like, I know a lot of people who go through really dramatic things publicly. Like we have to create, we have to create our own revenue stream.

[Rachel Yukatel]

We have to create your own revenue stream. It's really important. So what are you doing now?

[Amy Nelson]

So I have a startup called the Riveter, which is the same startup I had back when I was in Seattle. We did build co working spaces for women that went away during the pandemic. But now I have an online membership where we work with women who are pivoting from corporate America to working on their own. Like how you, how you set up the business back end, how you do all of that. I have a newsletter that goes to 50,000 people. And then I also have just started doing consulting in the legal world around kind of like really hard, really hard legal battles. So I'm not lawyering, but I am consulting on that front again, which is really great. And I'm very passionate about it because I care so much. I feel so much for people who are caught up in these horrible David and Goliath battles.

[Rachel Yukatel]

And you have the experience, you know, there's so many people that do that and the consulting where they've just been trained in it as opposed to gone through it. And you got to go through it to be able to give that advice. So I think That's a great move for you. All right, so tell our listeners where they can find out more about you, where they can follow you, and where they can get more information about your startup.

[Amy Nelson]

Yes. So you can follow me on all channels at AmyKnelson. And my startup is called the Riveter, like Rosie the Riveter from World War II. And we're on all channels at the Riveter Co. And the website is the

[Rachel Yukatel]

Riveter Co. My last question for you is if you could say one thing directly to Jeff Bezos, what would it be?

[Amy Nelson]

I wish you would sit down in a room and talk with us.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Well, I hope that happens for you. I really wish you the best of luck. I'll be following along and I really hope that one day you guys get all this back and you guys win a really big financial award because I know it doesn't actually bring anything back, but it makes it a little bit easier. And especially, especially your kids. Your kids have had to grow up seeing this. And that uncertainty is what a lot of people don't ever understand. Like people like you. And I do understand living with that uncertainty and you start to learn that that is normal and it's really not. And I hope your kids find some, you know, peace throughout this. And you guys as well.

[Amy Nelson]

Thank you so much for saying it. It's one of the hardest things.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Yeah.

[Amy Nelson]

And yeah, only a few people can understand it.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Right. But you're gonna get through it and I can't wait to see how it ends.

[Amy Nelson]

Thank you.

[Rachel Yukatel]

Thank you so much for listening to Misunderstood. I'm your host, Rachel Yukatel. Please be sure to subscribe to the show and give us a five star rating and review. You can support the show by joining our [e-mail] misunderstood with Rachel Ukatello. Do you have ideas for the show or want to reach out? Email [e-mail] that's spelled M I S S. Understood. Thank you so much and I'll see you next time.

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