Watson Faces Amazon Trial Alone

Brian Watson and his development firm, Northstar Commercial Partners, will enter a federal trial alone on Monday in Alexandria, Virginia. The change comes after a settlement was reached between Amazon and three other defendants just over a week before the scheduled start of the proceedings.

The settlement includes Carl Nelson, Casey Kirschner, and Arvada attorney Rod Atherton. With these parties removed from the case, Watson now stands as the sole remaining defendant in the lawsuit. The trial is set to take place in a federal courthouse in Northern Virginia and represents the culmination of a legal battle that began six and a half years ago.

Amazon alleges that Watson committed fraud and racketeering related to the development of data centers for the tech giant. The claims were first filed in April 2020, shortly after the pandemic caused office closures. At the center of the dispute are millions of dollars that Watson’s firm paid to a trust. These funds were later shared with Nelson and Kirschner, two Amazon employees who worked in real estate. Atherton was hired to help facilitate these payments.

Amazon characterized the payments as kickbacks intended to secure contracts. Watson has maintained that the payments were legitimate referral fees. He stated that the trust, established by Casey Kirschner’s brother Christian, was created to compensate Christian for introducing Watson to Amazon. Watson argued that he did not intend for a portion of those fees to be passed on to Nelson or Casey Kirschner.

The situation came to Amazon’s attention when a former Northstar employee sent an email to Jeff Bezos. The allegations also triggered a parallel criminal investigation by the U.S. Justice Department. In March 2023, Christian Kirschner and former Northstar executive Kyle Ramstetter pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. However, prosecutors vacated those guilty pleas a year later.

Watson had previously secured a partial legal victory in March 2023 when U.S. District Judge Rossie Alston struck down the majority of Amazon’s claims against Northstar. An appeals court reinstated those claims in September 2025. Judge Alston is set to oversee the upcoming trial. The specific terms of the settlement between Amazon and the three settled defendants were not made public.

In a joint written statement released last week, Nelson and Kirschner acknowledged that they received personal payments tied to real estate deals they handled for Amazon. They stated that these actions violated company rules. The statement noted that both men regret their actions and apologized for failing to meet Amazon’s ethical standards. Atherton also expressed regret regarding his role in the conduct at issue.

Attorneys for Watson argued on Thursday that their clients should have access to the settlement agreement. They described the agreement as being with co-defendants rather than disinterested non-parties. On Friday, Judge Alston denied the request. Watson’s legal team had also noted that Watson is facing his second federal civil trial this year. A jury in late January found him guilty of securities fraud in 11 real estate deals in a case brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Those deals did not include the Amazon data centers. Watson previously claimed that Amazon prompted the SEC investigation. He told the SEC jury that the federal government was used to prevent him from defending himself as an American citizen.