Two eBay executives were charged for staging a cyberstalking campaignThe eCommerceBytes creators have been held accountable Sentenced in prison. According to the Justice Department, these executives worked with five former eBay employees in an effort to intimidate David Steiner and Ina Steiner. The scheme was apparently devised to target the Steiners after Ina had published an article about a lawsuit that Amazon filed against it. David stated that harassment by the harassers made David’s life “a living hell.”
James Baugh was the former senior director for safety and security at eBay. He was sentenced to nearly five years in prison, and ordered to pay a $40,000. David Harville, eBay’s former Director for Global Resiliency, was sentenced to almost five years in prison and ordered to pay a fine of $40,000. Last person in the instanceA plead guilty was made and the defendant was sentenced to two years in prison with a $20,000 fine.
According to the DOJ the group delivered disturbing items to the couple’s house, including a book about surviving the death a spouse, a bloody mask, a fetal porc, a funeral wreath, and insects. The couple was also threatened by the group via Twitter and they posted the information on Craigslist inviting the public to have sexual encounters at the victims homes. Authorities claim Harville, Baugh and Harville also monitored Harville’s home personally with the intent of attaching a GPS tracker on their cars.
According to court documents, David Wenig (ebay’s CEO at that time) sent another top executive a message saying “If you ever want to take her down…now is the time.” This message was sent 30 minutes after Ina’s post had been published. The executive in turn sent Wenig’s message back to Baugh. It stated that Ina was a biased troll and needed to be BURNED DOWN. As The Washington PostNote that Wenig was not indicted in the case. However, he is now facing a civil suit from the Steiners. He was accused of trying to “intimidate and threaten to kill, terrorize, stalk, and silence them”. He denied knowing about the harassment campaign.
Baugh, Harville and others asked for forgiveness from the Steiners, according to The Post. “I accept 100% responsibility for all of this and there is no excuse. The bottom line is simply this: If I had done the right thing and been strong enough to make the right choice, we wouldn’t be here today, and for that I am truly sorry,” Baugh said.
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