[0:00]
but Jeff Bezos and his lawyers have done to my family for the past four years should be on the front page of every newspaper in America but it's not I could probably guess why million of you have shown up in the past day and are asking what happened so I'll try to give you a quick summary my husband Carl worked at Amazon Web Services a subsidiary of Amazon from 2012 to 2019 he had Amazon's original employment agreement which allowed him to do all sorts of things while he worked at Amazon Jeff Bezos is like a valid libertarian and wants people to be able to make money in a bunch of different ways so he gave my husband the contractual right while he worked at Amazon 
[0:31]
to start a company and seek investors as long as they weren't investors in Amazon and to work with businesses who were doing business with Amazon so long as my husband's arrangement with those businesses wasn't substantially the same as Amazon's arrangement you might think this is a weird employment contract my husband didn't write it Jeff Bezos and his lawyers did and this is not just my random interpretation of the contract this is the interpretation of federal courts in America my husband worked in real estate for Amazon he helped source land for Amazon to buy to build data centers on 
[1:02]
or helped Amazon work with real estate developers who built shell buildings that Amazon would turn into data centers and lease Around 2018 my husband decided that he was gonna get ready to leave Amazon and he wanted to start his own real estate development company not at all competitive to Amazon at all because Amazon doesn't sell real estate development so that's not a competitive activity names the company all core hires a lawyer company gets incorporated my husband gets his first investor that investor had been involved with Amazon real estate transactions how that investor had worked with a real estate developer 
[1:33]
who built shell buildings at Amazon later leased for data centers the investor earned money from the developer wasn't Amazon's money but would have been fine if it was Amazon's money and after he earned that money my husband learns he wanted to invest my husband's new company to compete with the real estate developer he'd been working with before great my husband leaves Amazon this company is called ALC Alcor starts working with it pitches deals to Amazon Amazon knows about the company and in fact Amazon works with a ton of former employees who've gone into real estate development because they know how Amazon works on the inside it's efficient it's more helpful 
[2:04]
it saves Amazon time and money my husband ends up working with two developers to resound land for data centers my husband hopes that they're gonna build data centers on this land at least into Amazon but Amazon instead decides to buy the land keeps the land building data centers has the land today my husband's company generates significant revenue that's great my husband's building his own real estate development company which was his dream I'm so proud of him but then on April 2nd, 2020 the FBI knocked on our door two weeks into the pandemic they told my husband he was the target of a federal criminal investigation in the Eastern District of Virginia 
[2:34]
we live in Seattle so this is across the country my husband had no idea what they were talking about he had his lawyer call Amazon and say hey you know I'd like to speak to you Amazon refused to talk to him unless he was planning to plead guilty to a federal crime husband wasn't charged with any crime federal prosecutors won't give my husband details we're in the dark it's terrifying then in may of 2020 the federal government using civil forfeiture seized every dollar in our bank accounts every dollar all of it my husband's businesses are personal accounts in mine because my husband and I shared money 
[3:05]
they also seized the money my husband had paid to lawyers in civil forfeiture you can take money from someone in America without charging them with a crime let alone proving it just on the suspicion it's a crime my husband is like what the hell I have this employment contract that allowed me to do X y and Z like I'm doing real estate what is the crime here Amazon won't talk to him federal prosecutors won't talk to him we have no money we have four little girls my youngest wasn't even a year old and my oldest was five two weeks after the government seized our money there was a banging on our door at 6:00am 
[3:36]
there was four FBI agents with guns we thought they were there to arrest my husband that they were there to execute a search warrant for months federal prosecutors threatened to show up and arrest my husband some pre dawn warning for four little girls that see him dragged out of the house unless my husband would plead guilty to a crime and here is what we eventually Learned he was being accused of Amazon had gone to the DOJ and said that my husband was essential figure in massive kickback scheme of millions of dollars and had defrauded Amazon 
[4:06]
they said that the money the investor invested in my husband's company was a kickback and a legal kickback saying that my husband had violated his employment duties to Amazon and accepted a kickback then they said these two real estate deals my husband did after he left Amazon were also a kickback like somehow my husband when he didn't work at Amazon was forcing Amazon into these real estate deals which made no sense mind you Amazon kept all of the real estate it was saying was a crime was building data centers on all of this real estate and eventually making billions of dollars off of this real estate selling cloud computing so they wanted the land 
[4:37]
kept all the real estate that wasn't the problem but they said my husband had committed this massive crime my husband's like I did nothing please look at my employment contract we then learn that Amazon had never given the DOJ my husband's employment contract so what was their probable cause for a crime if my husband was allowed to do this under employment contract they're gonna say it's a crime and the DOJ was just like ah we don't think this activity was allowed under the employment contract for four years that was as much as I would say we don't think this activity was allowed is that because Amazon said it wasn't 
[5:08]
obviously but you take Amazons contractual interpretation of their contract and say it's a federal crime we spent four years and $3.6 million proving my husband's innocence Amazon sued my husband in civil court after he wouldn't plead guilty to a crime my husband was never charged with any crime ever in civil court a federal judge eventually held that my husband had acted on his contractional rights to do what Amazon said was a crime and also tossed out Amazon's racketeering allegations 
[5:39]
that is that my husband was like part of a Mafia racketeering ring unjust enrichment fraud all of it judge tosses it out leaves in like one small state law claim that we're still fighting with Amazon about but nothing to do with a crime and the DOJ eventually then says well actually we have these four alleged co conspirators of your husband that have pled guilty to crimes and we're like what but then the DOJ says but we're gonna dismiss two of those guilty pleas and then we're going to take the extraordinary unprecedented step in American history of vacating two federal criminal plea agreements 
[6:10]
because they're not in the interest of justice because no crime happened so the department of justice ran a four year investigation raids in multiple states accusing all these people of federal crimes destroying businesses because Amazon said a crime happened and eventually was like JK never mind no crime happened what about the millions of dollars we spent proving my husband's innocence in America apparently if you are Jeff Bezos you can go and tell the FBI that a former employees of yours committed a crime and they're just gonna unleash hell on that guy and hope 
[6:42]
I hope you can survive it I guess that was like the the end of it we did get the money back for the DOJ we had to promise not to sue the DOJ in order to get the money back but you know the issue now is that no one at Amazon has been held accountable for what they did we can prove that Amazon's lawyers lied to department of justice about my husband's employment duties because we found an unsealed search warrant affidavit in court me looking through court records in Amazon said my husband wasn't authorized to do any of the real estate development work he did just like because Jeff Bezos said he wasn't authorized because it's funny cause Jeff Bezos gave him a contract saying he was explicitly authorized 
[7:15]
there's so much more to this story but it has been truly horrifying and I think more than anything you know aside from the fact that we lost our home we lost businesses we lost our friends we lost the city we lived in so we had to move and live with family you know I don't wanna live in an America where a billionaire can really do what Jeff Bezos lawyers did to try to put my husband in prison Amazon hired former federal prosecutors to lobby their former colleagues to try to put my husband in prison and no one has been held accountable and at this point that's really what I'm seeking and looking for 
[7:48]
you may tell me I'm shady my husband did something wrong I don't even know what wrong means people like there are laws there are contracts my husband broke no law my husband didn't break his Amazon contract and I don't think in America employers should try to put employees in prison over employment contacts especially when they don't break them so that's the eight minute summary of what's happened to my family Amazon has refused to speak to my husband ever and there's some pretty scandalous stuff I haven't shared with you here that but eventually will including the words of one of the men who pled guilty to a federal crime 
[8:19]
and what he has to say about it after the DOJ vacated his plea because it was pretty interesting what he said when he called me and if you've watched till the end that's the part that's gonna stick with you when he called me but go ahead and look it up see how often the DOJ vacates plea agreements is not in the interest of justice it doesn't happen New York Times article for a few years ago when General Michael Flynn's plea was vacated and I'm not saying anything about Flynn federal prosecutors can think of a single other instance in American history when the department of justice voluntarily vacated a plea and here we have four 
[8:50]
I hope that made sense you have any questions go ahead and comment please don't leave bullying comments I'm not gonna respond to them my mental health will not let me do it anymore but yeah that's what happened to my family so there's a summary