Two former senior executives at online retailer eBay were sentenced to jail for a sustained harassment and cyberstalking campaign against a Massachusetts couple who published a newsletter about e-commerce because eBay executives felt the newsletter disparaged the company, CNN reports.
The former senior director of safety and security Jim Baugh and former director of global resiliency David Harville were sentenced to 57 and 24 months in prison, respectively for the campaign, which directed eBay employees send David and Ina Steiner harassing emails and angry tweets, and to ship them a series of bizarre packages containing things like a bloody Halloween pig mask, a book on surviving the death of a spouse, and boxes of cockroaches.
Baugh, a former CIA employee, and Harville took to heart a message from then-eBay CEO Devin Wenig, who messaged another executive at the company that it was time to “take her [Ina Steiner] down” after the couple’s newsletter published something considering insulting and damaging to the company. Wenig is not charged as part of the scheme and denies any knowledge of it.