Earlier this week, David Harville, one of seven former eBay employees involved in a 2020 campaign to harass the creators of a newsletter criticizing the e-commerce company, pleaded guilty to five federal crimes, putting an end to it one of the most bizarre episodes of recent technology history.
In June 2020, the US Department of Justice, including Harville, faced a conspiracy to commit cyberstalking and a conspiracy to manipulate witnesses. Of the group, Harville was the last employee to admit his involvement in the harassment campaign against Ina and David Steiner. reported on Thursday.
In 2019, the Massachusetts couple published an article in their eBay litigation newsletter. In response to what they felt was negative coverage of the company, the group ran a harassment campaign that included sending the couple a preserved fetal pig, live spiders, and a funeral wreath, among other things. They also created fake social media accounts to send threatening messages to the Steiners and share their home address online.
According to the Ministry of Justice Part of Harville’s involvement in the campaign involved a conspiracy to install a GPS tracking device on Steiner’s car. Harville, along with James Baugh, one of the other former employees charged under the scheme, was carrying fake documents purporting to show the two were investigating the Steiners for threatening eBay executives.
Last July, a federal judge sentenced Philip Cooke, the first of seven former employees convicted under the program, to 18 months in prison. At the time, U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs called the entire case “.” That same summer, the Steiners sued several eBay employees, including former CEO Devin Wenig, for conspiracy to “intimidate, kill, torture, terrorize, stalk and silence them.” has little be aware of the campaign.
This article was previously published on Source link
