by BOSTON (AP) – Online retailer eBay Inc. will pay $3 million fine to settle criminal charges stemming from a harassment campaign by employees who sent live spiders, cockroaches and other disturbing items to a Massachusetts couple’s home, according to court papers filed. Thursday.
The Department of Justice charged eBay with stalking, witness tampering and obstruction of justice more than three years after the employees were prosecuted in the extensive scheme to intimidate David and Ina Steiner. The couple launched an online newsletter called EcommerceBytes that impressed eBay executives with its cover.
California-headquartered eBay accepted responsibility for the employees’ actions and entered into a deferred prosecution agreement that could dismiss the charges against the company if it meets certain conditions, according to the US attorney’s office in Massachusetts.
“eBay engaged in appalling criminal behaviour. The company’s employees and contractors involved in this campaign put the victims through pure hell, in a horrific campaign aimed at silencing their reporting and protecting the eBay brand,” the Attorney said. Acting Massachusetts US Josh Levy in an email statement.
The deferred prosecution agreement requires an independent monitor to oversee the company for three years to ensure it complies with the terms and federal law. The maximum possible fine under the charges was a criminal penalty of $3 million.
Ebay CEO Jamie Iannone called the company’s behavior in 2019 “wrong and incomprehensible.”
“Since these events, new leaders have joined the company, and eBay has strengthened its policies, procedures, controls and training,” Iannone said in a statement to the Steiners.”
The couple, who were the publisher and editor of the newsletter, have sued eBay in federal court, describing how cyberstalking and confused deliveries of packages sent anonymously.
Ina Steiner received harassing and sometimes threatening Twitter messages as well as dozens of strange emails from groups such as an irritable bowel syndrome patient support group and the Communist Party of the United States.
Along with a box of live spiders and cockroaches, the couple had a funeral wreath, a bloody pig mask and a book about losing a spouse at the door. Her home address was also posted online with ads inviting strangers to yard sales and parties.
In a statement published on their website Thursday, the Steiners said eBay’s actions have had a “permanent adverse effect” on them “emotionally, psychologically, physically, reputationally and financially.” They also expressed frustration that more executives were not charged.
“We strongly pushed federal prosecutors for additional indictments to deter corporate executives and board members from creating a culture that condones or encourages stalking and harassment,” they said.
The harassment began in 2019 after Ina Steiner wrote a story about a lawsuit brought by eBay that accused Amazon of poaching its sellers, according to court records.
Half an hour after the article was published, eBay CEO Devin Wenig sent a message to another top executive saying: “If you’re going to take her down … now is the time,” according to court documents. The executive sent Wenig’s message to James Baugh, who was eBay’s senior director of safety and security, and called Ina Steiner a “perverted troll who needs to be FIRED DOWN”.
Baugh was among seven former employees who eventually pleaded guilty to charges in the case. He was sentenced to almost five years in prison in 2022. Another former executive, David Harville, was sentenced to two years.
Wenig, who stepped down as CEO in 2019, was not criminally charged in the case and denied knowing about the harassment campaign or telling anyone to do anything illegal. In the civil case, his lawyers have said the quote “take her down” was taken out of context and the natural conclusion should have been that he was referring to a “lawful act”, not a “series of strange criminal acts” He was.
The Associated Press sent an email Thursday seeking comment to a spokesman for Wenig.
Baugh, described by prosecutors as the ringleader of the scheme, at one point recruited Harville to accompany him to Boston to spy on the Steiners, authorities said. Baugh, Harville and another eBay employee went to the couple’s home hoping to install a GPS tracker on their car, prosecutors said. The three found the garage locked, so Harville bought tools with a plan to break in, prosecutors said.
Harville’s attorneys have said he had nothing to do with the threatening messages or deliveries sent by his colleagues.
Baugh’s lawyers have said their client was under relentless pressure from Wenig and other executives to do something about the Steiners. Baugh alleged that the company then pushed him out when “an army of outside lawyers descended to conduct an ‘internal investigation’ aimed at saving the company and its top executives from prosecution.”
