So the founder of the left wing Democracy Fund has his people at EBAY pull off serious MAFIA style harassment for a couple with a news site.
There is more to this story than meets the eye. Why bring this story up now? Who are these sick people and who is EBAY connected? Clowns?
David and Ina Steiner received live cockroaches, a book on surviving the loss of a spouse and a bereavement wreath
Pornography was also sent to their neighbors - but addressed to David in a bid to cause them embarrassment
The harassment started in June 2019 when someone vandalized their fence
The campaign was to stop the site the Steiners from continuing EcommerceBytes, their site dedicated to e-commerce news
Six eBay employees were charged with cyberstalking, with eBay vowing to cooperate into the probe
One stalker, Philip Cooke, 55, was sentenced to 18 months in prison, a $15,000 fine and 100 hours of community service
A couple have details of a 'depraved' campaign of harassment they endured at the hands of eBay staff after criticizing the web giant on their e-commerce news site.
David and Ina Steiner received live cockroaches, a book on surviving the loss of a spouse, a bereavement wreath and a mask from the movie Saw that the killer wears before kidnapping, torturing and killing his victims.
David also recalled the moment he received a disturbing call from a shop in Arizona telling them they couldn't deliver the 'wet specimen' they ordered.
'Not having any idea what a wet specimen was, I asked her. It was an embalmed pig fetus'
The neighbors even received pornography addressed to David in a bid to cause the couple maximum embarrassment.
'Who could devise these tortuous packages? And the depravity - the messages , if you read the language - I never in a million years would have thought it was a company,' Ina said.
The harassment started in June 2019 when a neighbor walking his dog pointed out that the Steiners' fence had been graffitied.
It soon spiraled from the vandalism and unwanted, 'really disturbing' email subscriptions to eBay employees trying to place a tracking device on the car.
Prosecutors suspected the campaign was to stop the Steiners from continuing EcommerceBytes, a site dedicated to e-commerce news David and Ina have been running from their home for the past 22 years.
The site had been critical of eBay and its policies over the course of its reporting, which the Steiners say was honest and fair.
The Steiners first called the police after feeling like a suspicious vehicle was following them and were told it was a prank.
After the Steiners shared the photo of the car the police were able to track the license plate to a rental car checked out to a Veronica Zea.
Zea, 26, was staying at Boston’s Ritz-Carlton hotel with a man named David Harville, 48, and the pair worked for eBay more than 3,000 miles away in San Jose, California.
The Steiners and their lawyer soon found out this was not a prank but a 'systematic campaign to emotionally and psychologically torture the pair in order to stifle their reporting on eBay'.
Six eBay employees were charged with cyberstalking. The company has not commented.
Lead men Harville, eBay's former Director of Global Resiliency, and 45-year-old James Baugh, eBay’s former Senior Director of Safety and Security, were arrested on June 15, 2020 on counts of conspiracy to commit stalking, stalking through interstate travel, witness tampering and destruction.
The co-conspirators were Philip Cooke, 55, a former supervisor of security operations; Brian Gilbert, 52, a former Senior Manager of Special Operations for eBay’s Global Security Team; Stephanie Popp, 32, eBay’s former Senior Manager of Global Intelligence; Stephanie Stockwell, 26, the former manager of eBay’s Global Intelligence Center; and Zea, a former eBay contractor.
It is unclear why the posse took it upon themselves to allegedly target the Steiners so viciously.
Cooke was sentenced to 18 months in prison, one year on home detention and two years of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay a fine of $15,000 and to perform 100 hours of community service.
He later asked for leniency in sentencing because he had an alcohol problem attributed to eBay's 'drinking culture,' where an on-campus bar opened at 3pm and a morning shot was typical.
Gilbert, Popp, Stockwell and Zea plead guilty in October 2020 and are scheduled to be sentenced in September.
The maximum penalty for each charge was up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release, a fine of up to $250,000 and restitution.
eBay hasn't commented on the case, other than to say it is cooperating fully with criminal investigators.
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