By Ryan Parry, West Coast Editor For Dailymail.com and Josh Boswell For Dailymail.com

Published: 16:26 EDT, 8 April 2019 | Updated: 16:48 EDT, 8 April 2019

Ronald Ashley, 53, worked as an Amazon HR executive and became disabled after suffering a fall during a business trip in 2015. He died in the fall of 2016

A bereaved family suing Amazon for $6.5million after accusing the company of driving a former employee to his death have made bombshell claims that CEO Jeff Bezos knew about his plight.

The furious Ashley family are suing Amazon for HR executive Ronald Ashley's death in late 2016, when he succumbed to a heart attack after the company cut off his disability payments.

In documents filed with the New York federal courts last month, the family say Bezos spoke to Ashley on the phone about his treatment by the company and promised he would fix the situation.

But any alleged efforts by the billionaire magnate were in vain, when two weeks later Ashley died of a heart attack.

The Amazon IT manager fell in a hotel shower on a business trip in 2015, breaking bones in his thorax. Amazon delayed and refused to complete his disability payments, the family's lawsuit claims.

By fall of 2016, Ronald had run out of money, racking up credit card debt and facing eviction over unpaid rent, and spiraled into a 'crippling depression', the court documents say.

Amazon's HR staff told him it would be easier for him to resign to get the prescription drug refills and benefits he needed rather than fighting Amazon's decision not to pay his benefits, so he quit the company in October that year.

The Ashley family claim he emailed Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos when the company cut off his disability payments and was surprised when Bezos called him promising to fix the matter, but he died two weeks later before the issue was resolved

Then, in desperation, he emailed his billionaire former boss asking for help, the court documents claim.

'Ronald emailed Mr. Bezos at his jeff@amazon.com email address,' the documents said. 'To Ronald's surprise, Mr. Bezos called him directly.

'Mr. Bezos advised Ronald that he would look into the situation, fix the situation, do right by Ronald, and would be following up directly with Ronald shortly.

'At the direction of Mr. Bezos, Ronald was reinstated with [Amazon] as an ''active'' employee.'

The family claim that Bezos' intervention shows the company knew they were in the wrong, but that the impact of the debacle had already taken its toll on Ashley's health.

'Ronald didn't tell our family that he was struggling financially because he was a very proud person,' the Amazon worker's younger brother, Dwayne Ashley, told DailyMail.com. 'When his savings started to run out the stress started to mount, and it led to the decline of his mental state.'

Two weeks later, Ashley's concerned landlord let herself into his apartment in Bellevue, Washington, and discovered his body. The coroner concluded he had lain there for days after dying from a heart attack brought on by stress.

In their court claim, the Ashleys say Amazon's failure to pay disability benefits was to blame.

'But for Amazon's failure to honor contractually agreed to and/or provide granted benefits and accommodations to Ronald while he was disabled, Ronald would not have passed away,' the court documents say.

His family claim that Bezos' intervention shows the company knew they were in the wrong, according to court documents obtained by DailyMail.com

The family's tragedy was compounded when Ronald's older brother also died of a heart attack a year later, which the family believes was brought on by his devastating grief.

The Ashley family say the company is a 'bureaucratic mess', growing too fast to properly look after its workers.

'I'm furious. He needed this disability pay when he was living, and now he's dead. This has been so hurtful to me and my family,' said Dwayne. 'It's so disrespectful that the company would treat him like that.'

Dwayne said Ronald was a senior IT manager with a salary of around $150,000, an 'incredible' work ethic, and was well-liked at the firm, acting as a mentor for younger staff and often cooking Cajun dishes for his colleagues.

'Ronn was very much a family person. He was always the one that cooked for us on the holidays and gave gifts to everyone,' Dwayne added. 'Because he worked at Amazon he would buy literally hundreds of gifts for everyone. There would be bags of all these wonderful gifts around the tree at Christmas. He was a very generous person.'

The Ashleys have called Amazon's alleged actions 'disrespectful' and 'ironic' as Ronald (pictured far right with his brothers) was 'someone who took care of Amazon employees, and when he needed the benefits himself, they didn't want to give them to him' 

Pictured above is the funeral program for Ashley. The family's tragedy doubled when Ronald's older brother also died of a heart attack a year later, which the family believes was brought on by grief

The company has faced previous claims of improperly denying employee benefits and driving workers to their deaths on the intense shop floor of the gargantuan firm's sorting warehouses, but the lawsuit is the first case involving a senior Amazon employee.

The Ashleys ask for at least $6,586,000 from Amazon in their legal complaint filed in New York last year. But the family attorney, Michael Kapin, said the case could cost the company 'tens of millions of dollars' if it goes before a jury.

'Every detail I hear about this case makes my stomach cringe,' Kapin told DailyMail.com. 'I feel so much compassion for the family and what they've had to go through.'

The family claim the firm's failure to pay shows 'the bureaucratic mess at Amazon as a result of the company's rapid expansion. Due to its fast development this corporate gargantuan is unable to keep pace with the imperative requests made by its employees.'

'This whole thing was so hurtful,' Dwayne told DailyMail.com. 'Here's someone who took care of Amazon employees, and when he needed the benefits himself, they didn't want to give them to him. It's so disrespectful and ironic that the company would treat him like that.'

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