Former eBay Employees Charged With Cyberstalking; Allegedly Sent Bloody Pig Mask, Cockroaches To Newsletter Editor
SAN JOSE (CBS SF) -- Six former employees of eBay employees were charged Monday with leading a cyberstalking campaign, targeting the editor and publisher of a newsletter who had been critical of the Silicon Valley company, federal authorities announced.
The charges came out of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Boston. Federal investigators said the alleged harassment included sending the couple anonymous, threatening messages, disturbing deliveries – including a box of live cockroaches, a funeral wreath and a bloody pig mask – and conducting covert surveillance of the victims.
In response, eBay issued a statement that said -- "eBay took these allegations very seriously from the outset. Upon learning of them, eBay moved quickly to investigate thoroughly and take appropriate action. The company cooperated fully and extensively with law enforcement authorities throughout the process. eBay does not tolerate this kind of behavior. eBay apologizes to the affected individuals and is sorry that they were subjected to this. eBay holds its employees to high standards of conduct and ethics and will continue to take appropriate action to ensure these standards are followed."
James Baugh, 45, of San Jose, eBay's former Senior Director of Safety & Security, was arrested Monday and charged by criminal complaint with conspiracy to commit cyberstalking and conspiracy to tamper with witnesses.
David Harville, 48, of New York City, eBay's former Director of Global Resiliency, was arrested in New York City on the same charges and will make an initial appearance via videoconference in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York.
In addition the following defendants were charged:
Stephanie Popp, 32, of San Jose, eBay's former Senior Manager of Global Intelligence; Stephanie Stockwell, 26, of Redwood City, the former manager of eBay's Global Intelligence Center (GIC); Veronica Zea, 26, of San Jose, a former eBay contractor who worked as an intelligence analyst in the GIC and Brian Gilbert, 51, of San Jose, a former Senior Manager of Special Operations for eBay's Global Security Team.
They are each charged with conspiracy to commit cyberstalking and conspiracy to tamper with witnesses and will make appearances in federal court in Boston at a later date.
eBay also said in its release that the company that the alleged harassment investigation may have played a role of them CEO Devin Wenig leaving the company.
"The company noted that the internal investigation also examined what role, if any, the company's CEO at the time of the incident, Devin Wenig, may have had in this matter," the release said. "The internal investigation found that, while Mr. Wenig's communications were inappropriate, there was no evidence that he knew in advance about or authorized the actions that were later directed toward the blogger and her husband. However, as the Company previously announced, there were a number of considerations leading to his departure from the company."
According to the charging documents, the victims of the cyberstalking campaign were a Natick, Mass. couple who are the editor and publisher of an online newsletter that covers ecommerce companies, including eBay.
Federal investigators said members of the executive leadership team at eBay followed the newsletter's posts, often taking issue with its content and the anonymous comments underneath the editor's stories.
The charging documents allege that in August 2019, after the newsletter published an article about litigation involving eBay, two members of eBay's executive leadership team sent or forwarded text messages suggesting that it was time to "take down" the newsletter's editor.
In response, Baugh, Harville, Popp, Gilbert, Zea, Stockwell, and others allegedly executed a three-part harassment campaign.
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.
As part of the second phase of the campaign, some of the defendants allegedly sent private Twitter messages and public tweets criticizing the newsletter's content and threatening to visit the victims in Natick.
The federal charging documents also allege that Baugh, Gilbert, Popp and another eBay security employee planned these messages to become increasingly disturbing, culminating with "doxing" the victims (publishing their home address).
It is alleged that the very same group intended then to have Gilbert, a former Santa Clara police captain, approach the victims with an offer to help stop the harassment that the defendants were secretly causing, in an effort to promote good will towards eBay.
The third phase of the campaign allegedly involved covertly surveilling the victims in their home and community. According to the complaint, Harville and Zea registered for a software development conference to explain their trip to Boston on Aug. 15, 2019. Baugh, Harville, and Zea (and later Popp) allegedly drove to the victims' home in Natick several times, with Harville and Baugh intending at one point to break into the victims' garage and install a GPS tracking device on their car.
Baugh and Harville allegedly carried false documents purporting to show that they were investigating the victims as "Persons of Interest" who had threatened eBay executives.
Aware that the police were investigating, the defendants allegedly sought to interfere with the investigation by lying to the police about eBay's involvement while pretending to offer the company's assistance with the harassment, as well as by lying to eBay's lawyers about their involvement.
The charges of conspiracy to commit cyberstalking and conspiracy to tamper with witnesses each carry a sentence of up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release, a fine of up to $250,000 and restitution.