Four former eBay Inc. employees have agreed to plead guilty to their roles in a campaign of intimidation that included sending live spiders and cockroaches to the home of a Massachusetts couple who ran an online newsletter critical of the auction site, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.

“Four former employees of #eBay are scheduled to plead guilty on Oct. 8 at 2pm via zoom in federal court in #Boston,” according to a tweet from the official account of the U.S. attorney's office in Massachusetts. “The defendants are charged w/ participating in a cyberstalking campaign that targeted a Massachusetts couple.”

The four expected to plead guilty are Brian Gilbert, 51; Stephanie Popp, 32; Stephanie Stockwell, 26; and Veronica Zea, 26, according to The Boston Globe.

All live in San Jose, California, except for Stockwell, who lives in Redwood City, California.

They are among seven former eBay employees charged in the case, in which the Massachusetts couple had other disturbing items sent to their home, including a funeral wreath and a bloody pig Halloween mask.

They are all charged with conspiracy to commit cyberstalking and conspiracy to tamper with a witness. Their lawyers either declined to comment or didn’t immediately return emails seeking comment Wednesday.

The employees also sent pornographic magazines with the husband’s name on them to their neighbor’s house, planned to break into the couple’s garage to install a GPS device on their car, and posted the couple’s names and address online, advertising things like yard sales and encouraging strangers to knock on the door if the pair wasn’t outside, officials said.

The suspects engaged in a “systematic campaign fueled by the resources of a Fortune 500 company to emotionally and psychologically terrorize this middle-aged couple in Natick,” U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling said at a news conference when charges were announced in June.

An internal investigation was launched after San Jose, California-based eBay was notified by law enforcement of “suspicious actions by its security personnel,” company officials wrote in a prepared statement. The employees were ultimately fired, the company said.

Popp was a senior manager of global intelligence at eBay; Gilbert was senior manager of special operations for eBay’s Global Security Team; Stockwell was manager of eBay’s Global Intelligence Center, and Zea was an eBay contractor who worked as an intelligence analyst in the Global Intelligence Center. Authorities say they were working at eBay at the time of the alleged harassment.

Court documents say the couple was targeted after their newsletter published an article in August 2019 about a lawsuit filed by eBay accusing Amazon of poaching its sellers.

Share:
More In Business
Spring Style Tips for an Appropriate and Comfortable Return to the Office
As life inches toward a post-pandemic world, many people are trying to navigate how to transition from their work-from-home look to a new back-to-office style for the first time in two years. Dina Scherer, the owner of Modnitsa Styling, joined Cheddar News to provide some styling suggestions for those returning to the office. 'I do hear this from a lot of my clients that they just have no idea how to transition from sweat pants, athleisure, into a work office environment outfit that's both appropriate and comfortable,' she noted.
U.S. Stocks Close Mostly Lower, With Dow, Nasdaq Seeing Weekly Drop
U.S. stocks closed Friday's session mostly lower to end the first full trading week of April. For the week, the S& 500 dropped 1.26%, the Dow fell 0.27%, and the Nasdsaq saw a more significant decline of 3.86%. Melissa Armo, founder and owner of The Stock Swoosh, joined Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
U.S. Stocks Turn Positive in Final Hour to Close Higher
U.S. stocks saw a jump in the final hour of Thursday's session, and ultimately closed slightly higher for the day. Tim Pagliara, Chief Investment Officer of CapWealth, joined Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss. "The markets have had to digest a lot of action from the federal reserve this quarter and it's affecting everything from mortgage rates to how they value stocks," he said.
Union Petitions on the Rise at Big Companies Across U.S.
Herold Meyerson, Editor at Large of 'The American Prospect,' joined Closing Bell to discuss the recent uptick in unionization efforts across the U.S. and what it might mean for large corporations like Amazon and Starbucks, where workers are increasingly pushing to unionize.
SEC Investigating Amazon's Business Practices
Alma Angotti, a former SEC Enforcement Attorney and Global Regulatory Risk Leader at the consulting firm Guidehouse, joined Closing Bell to discuss the SEC probe of Amazon's business practices related to third-party seller data, and whether it will have any impact.
Investopedia Survey Finds Most Americans Don't Understand Crypto, But Still Hold Some Digital Currency
The month of April is also known as financial literacy month, and Investopdia marked the occasion this year by surveying 4,000 U.S. adults - 1,000 each from Generation Z, millennial, Generation X, and baby boomer generations - to try to get a better sense of where each generation stands when it comes to their understanding of all things money. The survey found that while many Americans have invested in crypto, most have much more to learn about digital currency. Investopedia Editor in Chief Caleb Silver joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Load More