A former eBay Inc. worker was sentenced Tuesday to at least one yr behind bars for her position in a harassment scheme concentrating on creators of a web based e-newsletter that included the supply of reside spiders, a bloody pig masks and different disturbing objects to their house.
Stephanie Popp, 34, of Louisville, Kentucky, who was eBay’s senior supervisor of worldwide intelligence, was sentenced to jail in Boston federal court docket after pleading responsible to cyberstalking conspiracy and witness tampering conspiracy fees.
Stephanie Stockwell, 28, of Redwood City, California, former supervisor of eBay’s Global Intelligence Center, was additionally sentenced on Tuesday for her position within the scheme, however prevented jail time. She was ordered to serve two years of probation, with the primary yr in house confinement.
They are amongst seven former eBay staff who’ve pleaded responsible within the scheme concentrating on a Massachusetts couple — David and Ina Steiner — who angered eBay executives with protection of the corporate of their e-newsletter, eCommerceBytes.
Stockwell and Popp reported to James Baugh, the previous senior director of security and safety, who authorities say was the chief of the scheme.
Baugh was sentenced final month to virtually 5 years behind bars. Another eBay government who pleaded responsible within the case, David Harville, was sentenced to 2 years in jail.
Authorities say eBay staff — at Baugh’s route — despatched nameless harassing and generally threatening Twitter messages criticizing the e-newsletter’s protection of eBay. The couple then began getting disturbing deliveries at their house, together with reside bugs and a funeral wreath.
At one level, Baugh recruited Harville to go along with him to Massachusetts to spy on the couple, authorities say. They went to the couple’s house within the hopes of putting in a GPS tracker on their automobile however the storage was locked, so Harville purchased instruments with a plan to interrupt into it, prosecutors say.
Prosecutors known as Popp one of many “most culpable participants” within the scheme. She was concerned in all points of the harassment marketing campaign and “knew both its full extent and the effect that it was having on its ‘rattled’ victims,” prosecutors wrote in court docket paperwork.
Prosecutors didn’t search jail time for Stockwell, describing her as among the many least culpable. While she was concerned within the planning and sending of the packages, she had no half within the nameless Twitter messages, prosecutors stated.
Stockwell’s legal professional stated in court docket papers that Baugh manipulated, “terrorized and intimidated” her and others he supervised. Stockwell’s lawyer stated all her actions have been undertaken “at the direction of, or manipulation by, Baugh,” however she has “never wavered in her heartfelt remorse for having participated in this ludicrous scheme.”
“The seeds of the tragedy that unfolded at eBay causing havoc, heartache, and fear” for the victims “disseminated from Baugh’s bizarre, unorthodox and frankly, inappropriate and dangerous work environment,” Stockwell’s legal professional wrote.
Popp’s legal professional declined to touch upon Tuesday. An e-mail looking for remark was despatched to a lawyer for Stockwell.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”