Six former eBay Inc. employees have been charged with waging an extensive campaign to terrorize and intimidate the editor and publisher of an online newsletter with threats and disturbing deliveries to their home, including live spiders and cockroaches.
Authorities said Monday that the employees set out to terrorize the Massachusetts couple who ran the newsletter with threatening messages and deliveries because executives were upset about the newsletter's coverage of the company.
According to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Massachusetts, James Baugh, eBay’s former Senior Director of Safety & Security, David Harville, eBay’s former Director of Global Resiliency, 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, a former Senior Manager of Special Operations for eBay’s Global Security Team were all charged with conspiracy to commit cyberstalking and conspiracy to tamper with witnesses.
"Baugh, Harville, Popp, Gilbert, Zea, Stockwell, and others allegedly executed a three-part harassment campaign," officials said in the news release. "Among other things, several of the defendants ordered anonymous and disturbing deliveries to the victims’ home, including a preserved fetal pig, a bloody pig Halloween mask, a funeral wreath, a book on surviving the loss of a spouse, and pornography – the last of these addressed to the newsletter’s publisher but sent to his neighbors’ homes."
The committee formed by the company's board of directors to oversee the investigation said eBay "took these allegations very seriously from the outset" and "moved quickly investigate thoroughly and take appropriate action."
