Former eBay executives given jail time for cyberstalking scheme

Two former eBay executives got jail time Thursday for his or her involvement in a cyberstalking scheme that focused a pair behind an e-commerce weblog that was perceived as vital of the corporate.

James Baugh, eBay’s former senior director of security and safety, was sentenced to virtually 5 years in jail, whereas eBay’s former director of worldwide resiliency, David Harville, was given two years behind bars. Each pleaded responsible to prices within the case.

Baugh, Harville, and quite a few different eBay executives in 2019 hatched a marketing campaign to harass Ina and David Steiner, the editor and writer of eCommercebytes, a web site carefully adopted by on-line sellers. Prosecutors mentioned the executives had been urged by former eBay CEO Devin Wenig to go after the couple after he and different leaders inside the corporate had been enraged by their protection of the corporate.

What unfolded was a weird and convoluted “three-part harassment marketing campaign” that was supposed to “intimidate” the Steiners and affect their reporting on the corporate, prosecutors mentioned in an announcement.

EBay executives repeatedly despatched the couple harassing and threatening messages on Twitter. The marketing campaign escalated additional when the Steiners started to obtain “disturbing deliveries” to their dwelling exterior of Boston, together with a guide on surviving the dying of a partner, a bloody pig masks, a fetal pig, a funeral wreath and reside bugs, prosecutors mentioned. Moreover, Craigslist posts appeared on-line inviting strangers to expertise sexual encounters on the victims’ dwelling. 

Baugh, Harville and others additionally traveled from California to the Steiners’ dwelling to surveil the couple. They hoped to put in a GPS tracker on the {couples}’ car, however the storage was locked, so Harville bought instruments to interrupt in, in response to prosecutors. 

5 different eBay staff have pleaded responsible to conspiracy within the matter. 

“The defendants’ poisonous model of on-line and real-world harassment, threats, and stalking was outrageous, merciless and defies any rationalization — all of the extra as a result of these males had been seasoned and extremely paid safety executives backed by the sources of a Fortune 500 company,” U.S. Lawyer Rachael Rollins mentioned in an announcement. “Their conduct was reprehensible.”

An eBay spokesperson did not reply to a request for remark. Ina Steiner did not instantly return a request for remark. 

Wenig, who resigned as CEO in 2019, isn’t named within the case. The Steiners have filed a separate lawsuit in opposition to eBay, Wenig and former senior vice chairman Steve Wymer. That case is pending.

“We imagine everybody who performed a job needs to be held accountable,” Ina Steiner wrote in a weblog submit on Wednesday.

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