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BOSTON (AP) — A former eBay The executive of Inc. was sentenced on Thursday to almost five years in prison for leading a plot to intimidate the creators of an online newsletter which includes sending live spiders, cockroaches, a funeral wreath and other scary deliveries to their home.
David Steiner, who along with his wife was the target of the harassment campaign, told the court that eBay’s former Senior Director of Safety and Security James Baugh and other eBay employees made their lives “a living hell.” He expressed fear that other companies would use it as a blueprint to go after journalists in the future.
“This was a strange, planned attack on our lives … with purchases at the highest level on eBay,” Steiner told the judge.
Another former eBay executive, David Harville, was sentenced later Thursday to two years behind bars for his role in the plot targeting David and Ina Steiner, the publisher and journalist who angered the company’s coverage executives. their newsletter, eCommerceBytes.
Baugh and Harville, eBay’s former director of global sustainability, are among seven former employees who have pleaded guilty to charges in the case.
Court records in the case show how top eBay executives were outraged by the Steiners’ newsletter and readers who posted comments criticizing the company on their site, which eBay viewed as a threat to its business.
The scheme was hatched in August 2019 after Ina Steiner wrote a story about a lawsuit brought against eBay. Amazon to pick up its sellers. Half an hour after the article was published, CEO Devin Wenig sent another top eBay executive a message that said: “If you want to fire him… now is the time, ” according to court documents. That executive forwarded Wenig’s message to Baugh and called Ina Steiner a “biased troll who needs to be fired.”
Soon, Ina Steiner began to receive harassment and sometimes threats Twitter messages. Strange unknown packages begin arriving at the couple’s home, including a box of live spiders, a funeral wreath and a book about surviving the loss of a spouse. . Ina Steiner began receiving strange emails from groups such as an irritable bowel syndrome patient support group and the Communist Party of the United States, authorities said.
Authorities described Baugh as the scheme’s mastermind and said he directed eBay employees to use prepaid debit cards, disguises and overseas email accounts to hide involvement with the company.
Baugh then recruited Harville to come with him to Boston to spy on the couple, authorities said. Baugh, Harville and another eBay employee went to the couple’s home in hopes of installing a GPS tracker on their car but the garage was locked, so Harville bought tools with plans to break into them, prosecutors said. .
Harville’s attorneys said he had no involvement or knowledge of the threatening messages or transmissions sent by his associates.
Prosecutors said in court documents that although Harville was not present at the initial meetings about the scheme, “he knew enough about the harassment by the time he was in Boston to taunt Baugh about delivering a bag of human waste, a running chain saw. , and a rat” onto their balcony.
Baugh’s attorneys said their client faced “intense, relentless pressure” from executives — including Wenig — to do something about the Steiners. They described Baugh as a “tool” used by eBay and then dismissed when “an army of outside lawyers descended to conduct an ‘internal investigation’ aimed at saving the company and its top executives of this from the prosecution.”
Wenig, who resigned as CEO in 2019, was not charged criminally in the case but faces a civil lawsuit from the couple. He denied any knowledge of the harassment campaign. In court papers, his attorneys said the “get him” quote was taken out of context and that the “natural inference” was that he was referring to taking “lawful action, such as a public dissent,” not “a series of strange. criminal acts.”
“At this point, an independent investigation says that Mr. Wenig had no knowledge and prosecutors in the case made it clear that Baugh was responsible. Devin never told anyone to do anything unethical or illegal and if he knew about it, he stopped it,” a Wenig spokeswoman said in an email.
Assistant US Attorney Seth Kosto accused Baugh of trying to deflect blame, saying no one above him at eBay “told him not to anonymously threaten and harass and harass the Steiners.”
The Steiners say the terror campaign has robbed them of their sense of safety and caused devastating consequences for their business and finances.
“What eBay – the defendant and other co-conspirators, both indicted and unindicted – changed me forever and I don’t think the old David will ever come back,” said David Steiner.
Baugh and Harville apologized to the Steiners for their actions before their sentences were handed down. Baugh told the Steiners that he hoped they would forgive him in the future.
“I take 100% responsibility for this, and there is no excuse for what I did,” Baugh said. “The bottom line is 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.”
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