The United States of Amazon: The Day Amazon Sent the FBI to Take My Family’s Bank Accounts
FBI agents do not ring the doorbell. I can still hear them pounding on the glass early one June, pandemic morning in Seattle. I walked to the door with the youngest of my four daughters riding on my hip in a diaper. They were wearing their FBI raid jackets. “Open the door,” they shouted. “Warrant.” But the four agents with guns going through my house weren’t my main concern. Two weeks prior, federal prosecutors obtained a different kind of warrant that left us penniless and powerless to defend ourselves from an oncoming legal nightmare.
In 2020, Amazon Web Services accused my husband of a federal crime we’d never heard of: depriving the company of his “honest services” during his seven years of employment for the tech titan. Based on Amazon’s allegations, the government then authorized “civil forfeiture” and seized our family and business bank accounts — including my earnings as the CEO of my start-up, The Riveter, and savings from my decade as an attorney.
Fast forward almost two years. My husband has not been charged with any crime and the seizure has forever changed our lives. For 22 months, we waited. We were not permitted to even see Amazon’s allegations that the government relied upon (which remained under seal). For 22 months, we were denied the ability to contest the seizures in any judicial proceeding. Somehow, this series of events is legal in America.
And we’re not alone. According to court filings, the government has collaborated with Amazon attorneys to seize millions in assets from at least 53 companies, investors, law firms, and individuals. Multiple small businesses have shut down, causing more than 50 people to lose their jobs. And 12 children have lost their family homes, either seized by the feds or sold to cover attorney’s fees.
Our lives have been upended. We sold our home, car, and emptied my husband’s retirement account — just to pay our lawyers. Our family of six has stayed in my sister’s basement, my father-in-law’s condo, and my parents’ townhouse, while our girls have attended six different schools and daycare providers in four separate states. When we tried to rent a house for our family, the owner learned of the forfeiture online and required us to pay a year of rent up front. The case’s publicity has obviously devastated my husband’s career — but also mine.
For most of the country’s history, civil forfeiture was an obscure backwater. At the time of the Founding, civil forfeiture was limited to confiscating ships and cargo that ran afoul of customs duties. But now civil forfeiture has become wildly popular across law enforcement, precisely because it doesn’t require a criminal conviction, or even an indictment, to confiscate someone’s property.
In fact, over the past two decades, state and federal governments together have seized over $68.8 billion from Americans. Both anecdotes and statistics tell the story that civil forfeiture is deployed disproportionately against people of color, low-income Americans, and immigrants. The proceeds, in turn, fund law enforcement agencies, providing further incentive to seize more and more.
Seizing assets also gives prosecutors tremendous leverage. Today, federal prosecutors obtain 97% of criminal convictions from guilty pleas instead of trials. Civil forfeiture is a powerful tool because, if defendants cannot afford an attorney to fight back in court (let alone feed and house their family), they are far more likely to fold and accept whatever plea bargain a prosecutor offers, regardless of their innocence. Numerous legal scholars have documented the high rate of pleas by even innocent defendants.
Today, there is bipartisan support for civil forfeiture reform. I believe the practice should be abolished. Due process is the only right guaranteed twice by the Constitution. If I cannot be imprisoned unless found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt by a jury of my peers, why can my money? Where is due process when a private company makes secret allegations to a government official that my money is a crime without affording me an opportunity to even see the allegations?
My family’s story adds another twist to the devastating use of civil forfeiture in America: Here, former FBI and Dept. of Justice employees who now work for Amazon leveraged cozy relationships with their former federal offices to lobby the government to pursue criminal charges and a civil forfeiture case. After they knew we had no money to pay for legal representation, Amazon’s lawyers sued my husband in federal court. If we can’t afford to defend ourselves, Amazon automatically wins.
For nearly two years, we waited as the Justice Department has held onto our money while one of the planet’s most powerful corporations paid its lawyers millions of dollars to kick us in the ribs. And then almost as suddenly as it began, last week the government returned our money. They just gave it back; without a trial, without an apology, without much discussion at all. We were never afforded the ability to see Amazon’s accusations or understand why the government took it in the first place. I suppose we are meant to be grateful it is over and move on. But I can’t. Because here’s the thing: the government cannot ever give us back the life we had before they left us penniless. And if our constitution still means anything today, we must end civil forfeiture.
