An Amazon data center in Loudon County in northern Virginia. (Google Street View)
A long-running criminal investigation involving a Denver developer appears to be ending in an about-face by federal prosecutors in Virginia.
On Wednesday, in an unusual move, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia asked to vacate the wire fraud guilty pleas submitted last year by Christian Kirschner and Kyle Ramstetter, two longtime Colorado residents.
Ramstetter was previously an executive with Northstar Commercial Partners, a Denver-based real estate investment and development firm. Kirschner was a close friend of Northstar owner and CEO Brian Watson.
The case involves one of the world’s largest companies and has raised questions about its close relationship with law enforcement.
Brian Watson
In April 2020, Watson and his firm were sued by Amazon. The Seattle-based company alleged that Watson had paid kickbacks to two Amazon employees in order to secure deals to develop data centers for Amazon Web Services in northern Virginia.
Weeks before the lawsuit was filed, the FBI served a search warrant at Watson’s mansion in Cherry Hills Village, as well as the homes of the two now-former Amazon employees, Carl Nelson and Casey Kirschner. Casey Kirschner is the brother of Christian Kirschner.
The FBI’s involvement signaled the existence of a parallel criminal investigation into the allegations. But the status of that investigation remained largely unclear for years, as Amazon’s slow-moving lawsuit made its way through the court system.
Then, in March 2023, Christian Kirschner and Kyle Ramstetter pleaded guilty, and signed documents stating they helped facilitate a kickback scheme in which Watson made payments to a trust managed by Kirschner, which in turn passed on much of the funds through shell companies to his brother and Nelson.
Amazon has said it first learned of the scheme when a former Northstar employee emailed Jeff Bezos in December 2019.
On the day that Christian Kirschner and Ramstetter pleaded guilty, court dockets indicated that two more men would likely do so in the coming weeks.
In April 2023, however, there was a surprise development in Amazon’s civil lawsuit. A judge threw out all but two of the company’s claims against Watson, essentially saying the company’s arguments for those claims weren’t even worthy of being presented to a jury. Amazon has since appealed that decision.
That ruling appears to have affected the criminal prosecution, which is technically separate. Prosecutors repeatedly pushed back the hearings for the other two men expected to plead guilty, then dropped the matters involving them entirely in July.
But the guilty pleas submitted by Christian Kirschner and Ramstetter remained, having already been entered into the record.
On Wednesday, however, prosecutors asked the court to “dismiss the criminal informations filed in these two cases and to vacate the guilty pleas.”
“Prosecution of these cases is not in the best interests of justice,” U.S. Attorney Jessica Aber wrote.
Aber alluded to the fact that no criminal charges had been filed against Watson, Nelson and Christian Kirschner, the three individuals at the center of the matter.
“At this time, the government has declined to prosecute other alleged coconspirators in this scheme,” Aber wrote. “Because Ramstetter and Kirschner had comparatively minimal involvement in the larger scheme, dismissing charges against them is in the best interests of justice.”
The request to vacate the pleas still needs to be granted by a judge.
In 2018, Watson was the Republican nominee for Colorado state treasurer. In spring 2020, he said in court documents that his net worth was $61 million. But the litigation and criminal investigation has changed his life. Northstar has said in court documents it’s down to two employees from approximately 40. The company has unloaded many of its assets, and Watson sold the Cherry Hills mansion for $8.5 million.
Other defendants have similar stories. Nelson’s wife Amy has been outspoken on social media about the impact on the couple and their four daughters, particularly the resulting legal bills, which she said forced the couple to liquidate retirement savings, sell their Seattle home and move close to family in Ohio. The federal government seized hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Nelsons in 2020, only to return most of it in 2022.
Watson isn’t in the clear yet. Amazon continues to keep its lawsuit alive in appeals court. And in August 2022, Watson was charged civilly with securities fraud by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. That case, which does not relate to the Amazon development deals, is ongoing.
An Amazon data center in Loudon County in northern Virginia. (Google Street View)
A long-running criminal investigation involving a Denver developer appears to be ending in an about-face by federal prosecutors in Virginia.
On Wednesday, in an unusual move, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia asked to vacate the wire fraud guilty pleas submitted last year by Christian Kirschner and Kyle Ramstetter, two longtime Colorado residents.
Ramstetter was previously an executive with Northstar Commercial Partners, a Denver-based real estate investment and development firm. Kirschner was a close friend of Northstar owner and CEO Brian Watson.
The case involves one of the world’s largest companies and has raised questions about its close relationship with law enforcement.
Brian Watson
In April 2020, Watson and his firm were sued by Amazon. The Seattle-based company alleged that Watson had paid kickbacks to two Amazon employees in order to secure deals to develop data centers for Amazon Web Services in northern Virginia.
Weeks before the lawsuit was filed, the FBI served a search warrant at Watson’s mansion in Cherry Hills Village, as well as the homes of the two now-former Amazon employees, Carl Nelson and Casey Kirschner. Casey Kirschner is the brother of Christian Kirschner.
The FBI’s involvement signaled the existence of a parallel criminal investigation into the allegations. But the status of that investigation remained largely unclear for years, as Amazon’s slow-moving lawsuit made its way through the court system.
Then, in March 2023, Christian Kirschner and Kyle Ramstetter pleaded guilty, and signed documents stating they helped facilitate a kickback scheme in which Watson made payments to a trust managed by Kirschner, which in turn passed on much of the funds through shell companies to his brother and Nelson.
Amazon has said it first learned of the scheme when a former Northstar employee emailed Jeff Bezos in December 2019.
On the day that Christian Kirschner and Ramstetter pleaded guilty, court dockets indicated that two more men would likely do so in the coming weeks.
In April 2023, however, there was a surprise development in Amazon’s civil lawsuit. A judge threw out all but two of the company’s claims against Watson, essentially saying the company’s arguments for those claims weren’t even worthy of being presented to a jury. Amazon has since appealed that decision.
That ruling appears to have affected the criminal prosecution, which is technically separate. Prosecutors repeatedly pushed back the hearings for the other two men expected to plead guilty, then dropped the matters involving them entirely in July.
But the guilty pleas submitted by Christian Kirschner and Ramstetter remained, having already been entered into the record.
On Wednesday, however, prosecutors asked the court to “dismiss the criminal informations filed in these two cases and to vacate the guilty pleas.”
“Prosecution of these cases is not in the best interests of justice,” U.S. Attorney Jessica Aber wrote.
Aber alluded to the fact that no criminal charges had been filed against Watson, Nelson and Christian Kirschner, the three individuals at the center of the matter.
“At this time, the government has declined to prosecute other alleged coconspirators in this scheme,” Aber wrote. “Because Ramstetter and Kirschner had comparatively minimal involvement in the larger scheme, dismissing charges against them is in the best interests of justice.”
The request to vacate the pleas still needs to be granted by a judge.
In 2018, Watson was the Republican nominee for Colorado state treasurer. In spring 2020, he said in court documents that his net worth was $61 million. But the litigation and criminal investigation has changed his life. Northstar has said in court documents it’s down to two employees from approximately 40. The company has unloaded many of its assets, and Watson sold the Cherry Hills mansion for $8.5 million.
Other defendants have similar stories. Nelson’s wife Amy has been outspoken on social media about the impact on the couple and their four daughters, particularly the resulting legal bills, which she said forced the couple to liquidate retirement savings, sell their Seattle home and move close to family in Ohio. The federal government seized hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Nelsons in 2020, only to return most of it in 2022.
Watson isn’t in the clear yet. Amazon continues to keep its lawsuit alive in appeals court. And in August 2022, Watson was charged civilly with securities fraud by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. That case, which does not relate to the Amazon development deals, is ongoing.
