eBay To Pay $3 Million In Cyberstalking Campaign Against Natick Couple

NATICK, MA — eBay has agreed to pay a $3 million criminal penalty for its part in the harassment and intimidation campaign against the Natick couple of David and Ina Steiner, officials announced today.

eBay was charged criminally with two counts of stalking through interstate travel, two counts of stalking through electronic communications services, one count of witness tampering and one count of obstruction of justice and has entered into a deferred prosecution agreement.

As part of the agreement, eBay admitted to the alleged conduct and agreed to pay a criminal penalty of $3 million. The company will also be required to retain an independent corporate compliance monitor for three years and "to make extensive enhancements to its compliance program," officials said.

“eBay engaged in absolutely horrific, criminal conduct. The company’s employees and contractors involved in this campaign put the victims through pure hell, in a petrifying campaign aimed at silencing their reporting and protecting the eBay brand,” said Acting United States Attorney Joshua S. Levy.

According to eBay’s admissions, between approximately Aug. 5, 2019 and Aug. 23, 2019, Jim Baugh, eBay’s former Senior Director of Safety and Security, and six other members of eBay’s security team targeted the Steiner's for their roles in publishing an eBay-centric newsletter.

Senior executives at eBay were frustrated with the newsletter’s tone and content, and with the comments posted beneath the newsletter’s articles. The harassment campaign arose from communications between those executives and Baugh, officials said.

Baugh and his co-conspirators executed a harassment campaign intended to intimidate the victims and to change the content of the newsletter’s reporting.

The campaign included sending 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 and a funeral wreath and live insects; sending private Twitter messages and public tweets criticizing the newsletter’s content and threatening to visit the victims in Natick; and traveling to Natick to surveil the victims and install a GPS tracking device on their car, officials said.

The harassment also featured Craigslist posts inviting the public for sexual encounters at the Steiner’s home.

The victims spotted the surveillance team and contacted local police. After learning of the Natick Police Department’s investigation, Baugh made false statements to police and internal investigators, and he and his team deleted digital evidence related to the cyberstalking campaign and falsified records intended to throw the police off the trail, officials said.

The seven convicted eBay employees and contractors include Baugh, who was sentenced to 57 months in prison in September 2022; David Harville, former Director of Global Resiliency, who was sentenced to 24 months in prison in September 2022; Stephanie Popp, former Senior Manager of Global Intelligence, who was sentenced to 12 months in prison in October 2022; Philip Cooke, a former Senior Manager of Security Operations, who was sentenced to 18 months in prison and 12 months of home confinement in July 2021; Stephanie Stockwell and Veronica Zea, a former Manager of Global Intelligence and a contract intelligence analyst, respectively, who were each sentenced to one year in home confinement in October and November 2022.

Brian Gilbert, a former Senior Manager of Security Operations, has pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing.

This news comes as the lawsuit filed by a the Steiner's against eBay and former executives of the company is set to move forward, though with certain changes, a federal judge ruled recently.

U.S. District Judge Patti Saris narrowed the case brought forward by David and Ina Steiner — a move she hinted at in August — by dismissing stalking and assault claims against several defendants, Reuters reported.

The recent ruling sets the case up to proceed against a majority of the 13 defendants, and it could go to trail in the spring of 2025.

That all could change, however, as settlement talks are said to have happened.

The company is also said to have already set aside $64 million to cover liability stemming from the lawsuit, a potential settlement with the Department of Justice and other, unrelated costs.