Third of 6 Defendants in Amazon Bribery Case to Be Sentenced in July

Amazon consultant Ed Rosenberg will be sentenced next month as part of the infamous Amazon bribery case involving six defendants in total. Two months before his trial was set to take place on May 15, 2023, Rosenberg entered into a plea deal with federal prosecutors that included a proposed fine of $100,000.

This week, after receiving notice that the defendant had transferred $100,000 to his attorney, the Court agreed the defendant’s funds could be deposited into the Registry of the Court “to be later applied to Defendant’s criminal monetary impositions in this case.”

Online sellers were shocked in 2020 when the Feds alleged that ecommerce consultants had bribed Amazon employees and contractors in order to gain an unfair competitive advantage on the marketplace. The DOJ charged six people with conspiracy involving bribery and accessing a protected computer without authorization, and conspiracy to commit wire fraud and wire fraud.

Codefendants Joseph Nilsen and Kristen Leccese pleaded guilty last year and their sentencing hearings, originally set for this month, were postponed until September.

In their respective plea agreements, Nilsen and Leccese admitted they had conspired to pay bribes: to obtain confidential Amazon business information; to get suspended third-party sellers and product listings reinstated on the Marketplace; to circumvent Amazon restrictions and limitations on certain products; to gain access to restricted product categories by misrepresenting the source of goods; to manipulate customer reviews; and to surveil and attack other merchants and product listings, according to the government.

Note that Rosenberg did not admit to the same statement of facts in his plea agreement on March 30th. As we previously reported, he pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy, admitting he bribed Amazon employees and agreeing to a recommended sentence that imposes home detention but no jail time, though it will be up to the Judge to accept or reject the deal at next month’s sentencing hearing.

Ina Steiner

Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). She is a member of the Online News Association (Sep 2005 - present) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (Mar 2006 - present). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com. See disclosure at EcommerceBytes.com/disclosure/.