Former eBay executives go to jail for harassing a couple

Two former eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) security executives were sentenced to prison terms on Thursday for running a campaign to harass and intimidate a Massachusetts couple through threats and harassing home deliveries after their online newsletter drew the ire of the company's then-CEO.

Jim Baugh and David Harville were sentenced to 57 and 24 months in prison, respectively, for their roles in an extensive harassment campaign that included sending the couple cockroaches, funeral wreaths and a bloody Halloween pig mask. US District Judge Patti Saris, who handed down the sentences during hearings in Boston, called it a "hard-to-imagine" scheme fueled by a "toxic culture" at the Silicon Valley e-commerce company. "This was extreme and outrageous," Saris said. Saris also ordered Baugh, eBay's former head of safety and security, and Harville, its former head of global resilience, to pay fines of $40,000 and $20,000, respectively, after they pleaded guilty to cyberstalking charges. In court, he apologized to David and Ina Steiner, a married couple from Natick, Massachusetts, who both edit the EcommerceBytes newsletter and described being relentlessly terrorized by eBay employees. "As representatives of eBay, they made our lives hell," David Steiner told the judge. Prosecutors said senior executives found the newsletter critical of eBay, and in August 2019, then-Chief Executive Devin Wenig texted another executive that it was time to "take her down," referring to Ina Steiner. Wenig, a former Thomson Reuters (NYSE:TRI) executive who resigned as eBay's CEO in September 2019, was not charged, but seven other people were. A spokesperson said Wenig had "absolutely zero knowledge" of the actions they undertook. The campaign was led by Baugh, a former Central Intelligence Agency employee who, according to his lawyer, felt pressure to do something. At Baugh's direction, the Steiners received anonymous, harassing Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) messages, bizarre emails and unsolicited home deliveries such as spiders and a book on surviving the loss of a spouse, prosecutors said. Prosecutors said other eBay employees involved included Harville, whom Baugh hired along with a contractor to spy on the Steiners and try to install GPS in their cars. The Steiners' lawsuit against eBay, Wenig and others is still pending. Follow Global Economic Developments on Social Media! Click here to follow Ieconomy official Facebook account! Click here to follow Ieconomy official Instagram account! Click here to follow Ieconomy official Twitter account!