eBay’s headquarters in San Jose, California, U.S.
Bloomberg | Getty Images
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 essential 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 world resiliency, David Harville, was given two years behind bars.
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, an internet site intently 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 campaign” that was meant 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 residence exterior of Boston, together with a ebook on surviving the demise of a partner, a bloody pig masks, a fetal pig, a funeral wreath and dwell bugs, prosecutors mentioned. Additionally, Craigslist posts appeared on-line inviting strangers to expertise sexual encounters on the victims’ residence.
Baugh, Harville and others additionally traveled from California to the Steiners’ residence 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..
Five different eBay staff have pleaded responsible to conspiracy within the matter.
“The defendants’ toxic brand of online and real-world harassment, threats, and stalking was outrageous, cruel and defies any explanation—all the more because these men were seasoned and highly paid security executives backed by the resources of a Fortune 500 corporation,” U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins mentioned in an announcement. “Their behavior 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, will not be 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 ise pending.
“We believe everyone who played a role should be held accountable,” Ina Steiner wrote in a weblog publish concerning the case on Wednesday.
WATCH: How organized retail crime is fueled by stolen items on Amazon and Facebook Marketplace
Source: www.cnbc.com”
