In this Oct. 17, 2012, file photo, an eBay sign sits in front of the company's headquarters in San Jose, Calif. On Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2020, federal prosecutors said four former eBay Inc. employees had 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 highly critical of the auction site. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File)
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.
Facebook is undergoing more than a name change. The company, now known as Meta, has also seen an exodus of executives this year. While the timing of some of these resignations came before whistleblower allegations, it's undeniable the tech giant is undergoing big changes. Doug Astrop, Managing Partner at Exponential Investment Partners, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss Facebook's current state, possible regulatory scrutiny, the impact of Instagram chief Adam Mosseri's Congressional testimony, and more.
Businesses are likely to increase salaries budgets in 2022 by 3.9 percent according to a study by The Conference Board. Gad Levanon, head of the Labor Market Institute at The Conference Board, joined Cheddar to provide additional details about the survey's findings. He attributed the anticipated salary hikes to companies looking to retain current employees, a desire to attract a new crop of workers, and surging inflation.
Fast AF, a premiere quick commerce retailer for products and brands just announced the close of its Series A investment round. That round puts the value of the company at $200 million. The company gets items to customers ranging from masks to sneakers and is now launching its own in-house delivery service. Lee Hnetinka, founder and CEO of FastAF joins Cheddar News to discuss the announcement.
Carolina Navas, Snap's head of AR product strategy and product marketing, joins Cheddar News to discuss how Snapchat's augmented reality is changing the shopping game this holiday season.
Steve Case, Revolution Ventures CEO, joined Cheddar to discuss progress venture capitalists have made over 2021 and where investors are looking beyond Silicon Valley. Other locations VC firms are exploring include Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Chicago among others. "Historically there's been a brain drain in a lot of these cities, people leaving for opportunity elsewhere. Now, people are staying," he said of the emerging tech hubs. "There tends to be a collaborative effort in the community to really support startups to recognize the future of the community."
A new study by Pfizer-BioNTech found that a third dose of their COVID-19 vaccine is effective against the emerging omicron variant. The pharmaceutical giants also look to manufacture a vaccine specific to the omicron variant by March 2022.
Chamber of Progress CEO Adam Kovacevich joined Wake Up With Cheddar to break down what to expect from the cryptocurrency executives appearing on Capitol Hill and how it could impact future crypto regulation. "I think what most people want to see from regulation is essentially channeling the good and the potential and putting in place guardrails to minimize the bad," he said.
Michael Steinhardt, 81, has surrendered 180 stolen artifacts from 11 different countries worth $70 million. The former hedge fund manager has also received a lifetime ban from the antiquities market.
