Six senior eBay employees have been charged with intimidating and cyber-stalking the couple behind an online newsletter whose media coverage they didn't like.
The executives, who no longer work for the online marketplace, allegedly sent a stream of terrifying deliveries to the homes of the newsletter's editor and publisher and their neighbor. Sinister deliveries received by the couple over a period of weeks included a bloody pig mask, a wreath of funeral flowers, and live spiders and cockroaches.
Pornographic magazines with the husband's name on them were sent to the house of one of the couple's neighbors in Natick, Massachusetts. In addition, officials said that a plot had been hatched by the executives to break into the garage of the alleged victims and fit a GPS tracking device to their vehicle.
The former executives allegedly launched their prolonged campaign of terror after a newsletter run by the couple published a piece concerning some litigation in which eBay was embroiled.
It is further alleged that the executives created fake social media accounts that they used to send the couple a series of threatening messages and post about phony events happening at the couple's home address.
“This was a determined, systematic effort by senior employees of a major company to destroy the lives of a couple in Natick all because they published content that company executives didn’t like," said Massachusetts US attorney Andrew Lelling.
"For a while they succeeded, psychologically devastating these victims for weeks as they desperately tried to figure out what was going on and stop it."
Court documents reveal that one member of eBay's executive team directed the company's former senior director of safety and security, James Baugh, to "take her down," referring to the newsletter's editor.
San Jose, California, resident Baugh, along with eBay’s former director of global resiliency, David Harville, of New York City, are charged with conspiracy to tamper with witnesses and conspiracy to commit cyber-stalking.
Other former eBay employees charged in relation to the alleged cyber-stalking are Stephanie Popp, former senior manager of global intelligence; Stephanie Stockwell, former manager of eBay’s Global Intelligence Center; Brian Gilbert, former senior manager of special operations for eBay’s Global Security Team; and Veronica Zea, a former eBay contractor who worked as an intelligence analyst in the Global Intelligence Center.