Yeah, that's one thing that bothers me about the cases they presented. What on earth motivated the Feds to even look at these guys? They had to have been doing something else to warrant the attention in the first place, or else this country is in a lot worse shape than I imagined.
They are probably evaluated on how many convictions they get or cases they bring. They don't know this guy or care that it was minor, he was "breaking the law". Then once he is found innocent if they can later get him on something else they save face, see he really was guilty of something.
Improperly and unsafely shipping metric tons of sodium (as well as other [unspecified] hzardoous materials) does not sound like all that minor an offense to me.