It would be hard to make this stuff up. In our work, unfortunately, we find that unscrupulous executives may often be the perpetrators of surveillance, eavesdropping, and other sordid or even criminal activity. This is another case of what appears to be personnel conspiring to do something allegedly for the sake of the company yet severely crossing the line.
BOSTON – Six former employees of eBay, Inc. have been charged with leading a cyberstalking campaign targeting the editor and publisher of a newsletter that eBay executives viewed as critical of the company. 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.
Charged are:
- James Baugh, 45, of San Jose, Calif., eBay’s former Senior Director of Safety & Security
- David Harville, 48, of New York City, eBay’s former Director of Global Resiliency
- Stephanie Popp, 32, of San Jose, eBay’s former Senior Manager of Global Intelligence
- Stephanie Stockwell, 26, of Redwood City, Calif., 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
- Brian Gilbert, 51, of San Jose, a former Senior Manager of Special Operations for eBay’s Global Security Team
Good thing they are “former”. What were they thinking?
It is alleged 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.
According to prosecutors, two eBay officials, identified as Executive 1 and Executive 2, followed the couple’s newsletter closely. In April 2019, Executive 2 told Executive 1 via text, “We are going to crush this lady,” the complaint said. Executive 2 included a link to the newsletter’s coverage of Executive 1′s compensation, records show. The following month, Executive 1 told Executive 2 in a text message, ‘Take her down,’ ” the complaint said.
The personnel began a three part harassment campaign. First was sending disturbing deliveries to the victims’ home- and to a neighbor’s home. These included a preserved fetal pig, a bloody pig Halloween mask, a funeral wreath, a book on surviving the loss of a spouse, and pornography.
The second phase involved sending private and public messages and tweets criticizing the newsletter and threatening to visit them. They intended to then have one of the group approach the victims with an offer to help stop the harassment that they themselves were causing.
The third phase involved covert surveillance including a plan to install a GPS tracking device on the victims’ vehicle.
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. As protection in the event they were stopped by local police, 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. The victims spotted the surveillance, however, and notified the Natick police, who began to investigate. The police learned that Zea had rented one of the cars used by the defendants and reached out to eBay for assistance.
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. At one point, for example, Baugh, Gilbert, Popp, and Stockwell allegedly plotted to fabricate another eBay “Person of Interest” document that could be offered to the police as a lead on some of the harassing deliveries. As the police and eBay’s lawyers continued to investigate, the defendants allegedly deleted digital evidence that showed their involvement, further obstructing what had by then become a federal investigation. [MA DOJ]
Details of this case can be found at the Massachussetts DA website:
More information: