In my mind his crime is much more severe than shoplifting or paying by fake banknotes.
> why do we taxpayers need to pay
Both, Netflix as a company, and its shareholders are also tax payers, and can expect to be protected from fraud/crimes using taxpayers money.
Imagine if rather than an employee this was a consulting firm that had done the exact same thing (taken payments for signing Netflix up to unnecessary contracts).
Nobody would be going to jail, they would just sue the consultancy, which might go out of business.
There are laws against doing a thing, he did the thing and got caught. Go to jail, do not cross Go, give back the $500,000.
Ok, but that's just an appeal to authority, what's the moral grounding for those laws?
Of course lying and being deceitful for personal gain is wrong but why is it a criminal matter when an individual does it but a civil matter when a group does it?
Group also has decision makers who can be criminally prosecuted in case of some fraud committed.