Two former eBay executives were sentenced to prison yesterday for cyberstalking and harassing journalists whose news coverage had rankled the eBay CEO. One other former eBay employee was sentenced last year, and four others await sentencing.
James Baugh, 47, eBay's former senior director of safety and security, was sentenced to 57 months in prison and two years of supervised release, a Justice Department
press release said yesterday. David Harville, 50, eBay's former director of global resiliency, was sentenced to two years in prison and two years of supervised release. Baugh and Harville were also ordered to pay fines of $40,000 and $20,000, respectively. Charges against those two and several other ex-eBay employees were
announced in June 2020. The victims were Ina and David Steiner, who operate the website EcommerceBytes and live in Natick, Massachusetts.
The disturbing harassment campaign sent "anonymous and disturbing deliveries to the victims' home," including "a book on surviving the death of a spouse, a bloody pig mask, a fetal pig, a funeral wreath, and live insects," the Justice Department said yesterday. "The harassment also featured Craigslist posts inviting members of the public to experience sexual encounters at the victims' home." There were also "threatening Twitter messages... written as if they had been sent by eBay sellers who were unhappy with the victims' coverage in the newsletter," some of which "posted the victims' home address and threatened to show up at their home," the Justice Department said. "On Aug. 15, 2019, Baugh, Harville and a co-conspirator traveled from California to Natick to surveil the victims and install a GPS tracking device on the victims' car," the Justice Department said. "The victims spotted the surveillance team and contacted local police. Harville also purchased tools intending to break into the victims' garage and lied to an eBay investigator who was responding to the Natick Police's request for assistance."
Baugh and Harville "deleted digital evidence" after learning of the police investigation, and "Baugh made false statements to police and internal investigators and falsified records intended to throw the police off the trail," the Justice Department said.
arstechnica.com
