Hard to understand the details from that description, but it certainly looks like Carl Nelson (the husband) took money ("referral fees"?) from RE developers who were doing business with Amazon, while also being employed by Amazon. Now I am not a lawyer and don't play one on TV, but I sat through enough corporate ethics training to recognize this is exactly the case where they want you to at least get an official approval from Legal before getting any money, because this has "conflict of interest" written all over it.
Again I don't know what the contract Amazon had allowed and disallowed and what the lawyers can or can't prove in court, but it certainly - at least from the quick reading of it - does not seem like the case of "Amazon prosecuting innocent person out of the blue" but seems a lot like "Amazon employee did something which looks a lot like your standard kickback scheme". And their argument "but the deals I brought were awesome" does not really sound impressive - they may be awesome, but if you work for company A and bring an awesome deal with company B, you expect a bonus from the company A, not a kickback from the company B. If you do the latter, you're in a hot water regardless of how awesome the deal is.
Again I don't know what the contract Amazon had allowed and disallowed and what the lawyers can or can't prove in court, but it certainly - at least from the quick reading of it - does not seem like the case of "Amazon prosecuting innocent person out of the blue" but seems a lot like "Amazon employee did something which looks a lot like your standard kickback scheme". And their argument "but the deals I brought were awesome" does not really sound impressive - they may be awesome, but if you work for company A and bring an awesome deal with company B, you expect a bonus from the company A, not a kickback from the company B. If you do the latter, you're in a hot water regardless of how awesome the deal is.
Do I miss something substantial in this story?