Former eBay staffers charged with aggressively cyberstalking couple behind critical newsletter
Six former eBay senior staffers are accused of extensively cyberstalking and harassing a couple behind a newsletter critical of the online marketplace, the Justice Department announced Monday.
The Justice Department alleges the former staffers sent the couple anonymous threatening messages, conducted a sweeping surveillance campaign and shipped them items including a box of live cockroaches, a funeral wreath and a bloody pig mask to intimidate them.
All six were charged with cyberstalking and conspiracy to tamper with witnesses and could face up to five years in prison each and individual fines of up to $250,000.
Arrests made: James Baugh, eBay’s former senior director of safety and security, and David Harville, its former director of global resiliency, were both arrested Monday morning as part of the charges.
The four other defendants are Stephanie Popp, eBay’s former senior manager of global intelligence, Stephanie Stockwell, the former manager of eBay’s Global Intelligence Center (GIC), Veronica Zea, a former eBay contractor who worked as an intelligence analyst in the GIC, and Brian Gilbert, the former senior manager of special operations for eBay’s Global Security Team.
The alleged victims were a couple based in Natick, Mass., who are the editor and publisher of an online newsletter covering e-commerce companies.
The Justice Department says that after the newsletter published a critical story about eBay in August 2019, the former staffers exchanged text messages discussing the idea of “taking down” its editor.
They then launched a three-part harassment campaign against the couple, including attempts to break into the couple’s car to install a GPS tracking system, sending private threatening tweets and then publicly tweeting the couple’s address, as well as sending disturbing deliveries to the couple’s home, according to the Justice Department.
Very questionable deliveries: These deliveries included a preserved fetal pig, a book on surviving the loss of a spouse and pornography, the Justice Department said.
