Former EBay Security Director to Plead Guilty to Cyberstalking
Former EBay Security Director to Plead Guilty to Cyberstalking
(Bloomberg) -- Former eBay Inc. security director Jim Baugh will plead guilty to running a bizarre 2019 cyberstalking campaign against a couple who ran a website critical of the company, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Baugh had been scheduled to face trial in late May. In a court filing on Tuesday, his defense attorney, William Fick, asked a federal judge in Boston to allow Baugh to change his plea via videoconference.
Five other former eBay employees have already admitted to roles in a cross-country campaign designed to intimidate Ina and David Steiner of Natick, Mass. Several were expected to testify against Baugh. Another eBay employee, former global resiliency director David Harville is scheduled to face trial in May.
Ina Steiner’s reporting about eBay on the couple’s site eCommerce Bytes upset the company’s then-Chief Executive Officer Devin Wenig, whose compensation package she revealed.
“Take her down,” Wenig texted his then-communications chief Steve Wymer, according to prosecutors.
Neither Wenig nor Wymer have been charged. The Steiners filed suit against eBay and the former employees last year.
At Baugh’s direction, the couple received anonymous deliveries including a preserved fetal pig, a bloody pig mask, a funeral wreath and a book on surviving the loss of a spouse. Baugh also secretly visited the couple’s suburban home with plans to install a GPS tracking device on their car, according to federal prosecutors.
The case is U.S. v. Baugh, 20-cr-10263, U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts.
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