Economic punishment for stalking
Live spiders and cockroaches sent by post – Ebay has to pay millions
As of: 12:23 a.m. | Reading time: 2 minutes
Quelle: AP/Matt Slocum
In a bizarre case, Ebay employees sent a couple several packages that were probably intended to intimidate them. Inside were live spiders and cockroaches or bloody pig masks. This probably happened on the orders of the then Ebay boss.
The online marketplace Ebay has agreed to pay three million dollars (around 2.75 million euros) to a married couple. Company employees had sent spiders, cockroaches and other disturbing things to their homes. Ebay accepted responsibility for the employees’ conduct and entered into a deferred prosecution agreement, according to court documents filed Thursday. That could lead to the U.S. government dropping stalking charges under certain conditions.
The Massachusetts couple publishes a newsletter whose reports angered eBay management. In 2019, according to court documents, they published an article about a lawsuit by Ebay against Amazon, which Ebay accused of poaching dealers. Half an hour after the article was published, then eBay boss Devin Wenig wrote to a colleague in management that now was the time to take down the author. The colleague passed the message on to eBay security director James Baugh, among others.
As a result, the couple received a box of live spiders and cockroaches, a funeral wreath, a bloody pig mask and a book about survival after losing a spouse. The couple’s address was posted online, along with announcements inviting strangers to yard sales and parties. There were also harassing and sometimes threatening Twitter messages and dozens of strange emails from, for example, a support group for patients with irritable bowel syndrome and the Communist Party of the United States.
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Baugh and six other employees pleaded guilty in the case and were sentenced to five years in prison in 2022. Wenig resigned in 2019 but was not prosecuted. In a civil lawsuit, his lawyers said that Wenig’s demand that the author be brought down was taken out of context. Little wanted lawful actions and “not a series of bizarre crimes.”
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