Details of an Atlanta-area conspiracy that saw Amazon lose almost $10 million in the first half of 2022 are being publicly revealed for the first time at trial against a former contractor for the retail and tech giant.
Brittany Hudson is one of six defendants in the criminal case and the only one who hasn’t taken a plea deal. Her trial starts Tuesday in the federal trial court in Atlanta and promises several interesting aspects, including witness testimony from the court’s former chief judge.
Hudson is accused of scamming Amazon out of around $9.4 million with several Atlanta-area staff, including her girlfriend, Kayricka Wortham, who worked as an operations manager at Amazon’s warehouse in Smyrna.
Federal prosecutors said Wortham, who pleaded guilty to the conspiracy in late 2022, was the “mastermind” behind it. Prosecutors said the couple, who recruited others into the scheme, used the proceeds to buy a luxury home in Smyrna and several high-end vehicles, including a Lamborghini, Tesla and Porsche.
Wortham and Hudson were also charged with forging court documents and the signature of the chief judge initially assigned to the case so they could open a hookah lounge in Midtown. They’ve been in federal custody since the start of 2023.
Hudson denies all 30 charges against her, of fraud, money laundering and forgery. She fired her lawyer in early 2024 and is choosing to represent herself, court records show.
In a recent written request to end the case, Hudson alleged she had been deprived of various rights, including the ability to properly prepare for trial. She accused the federal government of retaliating against her and needlessly delaying her prosecution.
But U.S. District Judge Michael Brown noted in an order that Hudson had rejected legal representation and then filed “a seemingly endless number of motions” in the case. The judge said Hudson continued to make arguments previously rejected by the court.
Brandon Thomas, a “standby” lawyer for Hudson, told the judge on Wednesday that he had visited her several times in a federal detention facility in Clayton County to ensure she had access to all case materials on a laptop. Thomas did not immediately respond to questions about the trial.
According to Hudson’s indictment, she owned a business called Legend Express LLC that contracted with Amazon to deliver packages.
As a manager, Wortham had the authority to approve new vendors for Amazon, prosecutors said. They said she and Hudson created fake vendors and submitted more than $10 million in bogus invoices for those vendors, causing Amazon to transfer about $9.4 million to bank accounts controlled by them and others between January and June of 2022.
In a deal with prosecutors, Wortham pleaded guilty in November 2022 to a single count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. She was sentenced in July 2023 to 16 years in prison and three years of supervised release and ordered to pay $9.4 million in restitution to Amazon. More than $3 million in cash seized from 11 bank accounts was forfeited in her case, along with the luxury vehicles.
Wortham separately pleaded guilty in October 2025 to forging the signature of Chief U.S. District Judge Timothy Batten, who is now retired. She is due to be sentenced for that in March.
Prosecutors said Hudson and Wortham were on bond in January 2023 when they forged bank statements and court documents to secure a deal with the CRU hookah lounge franchise to open a location in Midtown. The false documents claimed in part that the criminal Amazon fraud case against them had been dismissed.
Batten, initially assigned the case, is expected to take the witness stand and testify against Hudson.
Other Amazon employees charged in the case were Demetrius Hines, a loss prevention lead who worked in part at the company’s Smyrna warehouse, and Laquettia Blanchard, a senior HR assistant at that location. In deals with prosecutors, they each pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in November 2022 and June 2023, respectively.
Hines has yet to be sentenced. Blanchard was sentenced in November 2023 to three months in prison and three years of supervised release. She was also ordered to pay Amazon restitution of $1.3 million.
Prosecutors also brought charges against another Amazon employee, Jamar James, who worked as an operations manager at the company’s warehouse in Duluth. But those charges, filed in June 2023, were promptly dropped because James had died months earlier, court records show.
A representative for Amazon said the company has cooperated fully with law enforcement. She declined to comment further because the case remains active.
The other defendants, Darrel Burgo and JaQuan Frazier, were accused of supplying stolen personal information about people, including names, addresses, birth dates and Social Security numbers, that was then used for the fake vendor invoices.
Frazier pleaded guilty in June 2023 to a single associated charge and was sentenced in October 2023 to three years of probation, with the first eight months on home confinement. He was ordered to pay $2.9 million in restitution to Amazon.
Burgo pleaded guilty in January 2024 to a single conspiracy charge. He was sentenced in June 2024 to a year in prison and three years of supervised release and ordered to pay almost $500,000 in restitution to Amazon.
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