Cyberstalked By eBay – Act 3: The Interview

Join me to hear how eBay mercilessly cyberstalked EcommerceBytes, an eCommerce related newsletter founded by eCommerce experts and authors Ira and David Steiner. This is eCrimeBytes.com Season 3 Episode 4, Cyberstalked By eBay – Act 3: The Interview.

The prior acts can be found here:

Sources:

Transcript:

00:00:10:00 – 00:00:33:38
Keith
What’s up, you crazy bastards! Welcome back to this week’s episode of eCrimeBytes. This is where I research the court documentation and roast the criminal so you don’t have to. So this week I’ve been bringing you this as season three episode four. This is cyber stalked by eBay where gosh, I really recommend you watch acts one and two because you’re jumping in on act three, which is the interview.

00:00:33:43 – 00:00:49:21
Keith
There is so much background you need for this to make sense. Let me give you a quick tour in case you just decide you want to plow on without watching it. If you do want to watch it on YouTube, I’m going to put a link here like I always do so you can go back and watch it. I really recommend that.

00:00:49:26 – 00:01:11:20
Keith
But in acts one and two, we have this eBay set of executives which end up being the CEO, and its comes chief, the communications chief that are pissed off that a newsletter posts critical things of eBay. And it’s not even it’s not like your mama’s ugly. It’s hey, you know, the eBay’s compensation for a CEO is X, Y, and Z.

00:01:11:25 – 00:01:39:10
Keith
It’s that type of stuff. They’re upset about it. So they use this special operations type of team inside eBay to start to harass and surveil this victim couple in order to get them to stop. Tangentially, there’s this there’s a set of parody social media accounts that will amplify this newsletter. And eBay thinks that they might be related or working together or could be the same person.

00:01:39:15 – 00:02:03:38
Keith
These parody accounts and the newsletter, because they their paths cross a lot on the Internet. So in the last act, what I took you through was an actual physical surveillance that this eBay team did of the victims in Natick, Massachusetts, which is all the way across the country from Santa Clara, California, where eBay is and all of these employees are from.

00:02:03:43 – 00:02:30:41
Keith
They physically sat outside these people’s houses. They followed them around the town, the the victim couple they caught on. Okay. So the one time they almost caught them, but they had a license plate number off by one. And the police officer couldn’t trace that back to the eBay people. But then then the last time they followed the victim couple, they took a picture of the car that the eBay people were in.

00:02:30:46 – 00:02:57:46
Keith
There was a license plate on there. They tracked it back to Veronica Zea, which was a contractor for eBay who rented the car, who was also at Ritz-Carlton with all the other people that were outside the town of where this victim’s house was in Natick, Massachusetts. So I hope you follow me so far. So we have them surveilling the victims, but the victims caught them, sent the license plate information back.

00:02:57:51 – 00:03:18:40
Keith
The Natick Police Department is hot on the trail. They know who Veronica Zea is. And because they’re investigating her Ritz-Carlton, they know who they now know who Harville is. So it’s only a matter of time. They’re going to connect all the dots with Baugh and all the rest of them. We last left you on Gilbert preparing for his meeting.

00:03:18:40 – 00:03:42:47
Keith
Now, Gilbert was the former police captain. That’s an inside investigator for eBay. He’s preparing for his meeting on August 22nd of 2019, where they’re going to ask a bunch of questions about why the fuck were you around these victims clear across the country when eBay is supposed to be out there in California? So Gilbert shows up and he claims it has nothing to do with

00:03:42:47 – 00:03:43:10
Keith
this.

00:03:43:21 – 00:04:07:23
Keith
We don’t know anything about it. He said I went there. He said Harville went with Zea. They traveled to Boston for a conference and then they she went to Natick on her own. And despite knowing, knowing because I read you a bunch of shit in all the prior acts, knowing that they were surveilling them, Gilbert lied to the police during that interview, totally lied to the police.

00:04:07:28 – 00:04:11:44
Keith
And then after that interview, they must really know that shit’s closing in because

00:04:11:44 – 00:04:27:03
Keith
Baugh sends an email to the comms chief, which is one of the C-level executives of eBay, and he says, Hi, the executive’s name. This is Jim Baugh’s personal cell. So already they’re probably going, Why the fuck are you sending me something on your personal cell?

00:04:27:05 – 00:04:51:30
Keith
This must be bad. You don’t want it on work resources. He goes on to say, My team ran an op on our friend in Boston. I guess that would mean the victims. Nothing illegal occurred, and we were actually intending to team up with her and get her on our side in a positive manner. However, small town police got a couple of rental car plates and tracked it back to my people in the hotel we were staying at.

00:04:51:35 – 00:04:59:29
Keith
They sent a note to eBay investigations team who then passed it to legal, and then they were conducting an internal investigation on us.

00:04:59:29 – 00:05:09:52
Keith
We are cooperating, but I know they realize something is off. We will continue to cooperate, but I’m not sure how much longer we can keep this up. If there is any way to get some top cover, that would be great. If not,

00:05:10:02 – 00:05:15:57
Keith
I just wanted you to have the heads up because they were aware that multiple members of the ELT, which stands

00:05:15:57 – 00:05:29:54
Keith
for Executive Leadership team, are not a fan of that website to include the CEO and his wife. What the fuck is his wife involved? I tell you what, my wife never calls work and is like this website my husband’s really pissed off about.

00:05:30:05 – 00:05:51:17
Keith
But that happened in this case that I actually saw that in the documentation. The wife talked to the investigators in eBay. Okay, so anyways, the letter goes on and says, Anyway, no crime was committed and local police don’t have a case. Me, Keith Jones I disagree with that. It goes on to say, I don’t want our legal team to to give them one.

00:05:51:28 – 00:05:53:17
Keith
Let me know if you want to discuss this

00:05:53:17 – 00:06:22:02
Keith
weekend. That was the oh shit email from Baugh to the comms chief. So then Baugh instructs Popp-Popp to take down any accounts that were associated with the newsletter victims. So anything that harasser harassing with. Take it down. Take down the ones that you might have even had on the newsletter themselves where we were monitoring because you imagine they may have created an account.

00:06:22:02 – 00:06:54:08
Keith
So when the newsletter published it sent to their user of the newsletter which ended up being a person at eBay. I hope you followed that chain there. So Popp was supposed to get rid of all these accounts, including the one at the newsletter. So they’re all on eBay conference room. And this must have been the oh shit moment where they’re discussing that The Natick Police Department was investigating criminal criminal harassment and stalking of the victims.

00:06:54:13 – 00:07:14:25
Keith
They’re also aware that eBay’s legal department was attempting to investigate this like it’s because they got word of this information and it went through eBay. Now, eBay internally has to investigate. So they have two investigations at least to deal with. The internal eBay one and the external police one.

00:07:14:25 – 00:07:21:31
Keith
And then Harville got all pissed off. He’s like Ritz-Carlton and Enterprise should never have given my name away.

00:07:21:31 – 00:07:43:43
Keith
That’s an invasion of privacy, giving my name away. And I for a moment, I had to hold my head. I was like, Fucker, you were paste. You were cutting and pasting these victims home address on the internet. Yet you have to complain about your name being dropped in a criminal investigation that’s like, fuck off. So this I think, is kind of telling and I’ll comment more about this later.

00:07:43:43 – 00:08:07:16
Keith
But all told, according to cooperating witnesses, Baugh told the people in the group do not talk about the CEO or the comms chief and anything regarding this. And I think that’s just because it would be very, very bad for eBay to have one of the C level employees indicted for this. And they know it. They’re saying it, they know it now.

00:08:07:16 – 00:08:29:24
Keith
They’re actually saying it to each other. So now eBay is doing their investigation. And when they do this, they leave it on speaker phone with the group, the criminal group. So that way they all know and can kind of coach each other to say the right things. So like, you know, eBay’s legal calls Harville, Harville leaves it on speaker phone so everybody can see it.

00:08:29:26 – 00:08:58:09
Keith
Harville is like, yeah, I attended a conference was Zea and you know that alibi checks out with what they use with the police but then they went further. Harville actually like went through the conference schedule to be knowledgeable about it, so that way he could talk to them knowledgeably about this conference that he never actually went to. And he said, yeah, I rented a car to be able to go see my sister who lived in the area.

00:08:58:09 – 00:09:38:46
Keith
So he’s trying to explain all the different things away. And then, you know, Popp did the same thing. She was on a call with eBay’s legal and it was on speakerphone so everybody could coach her. And she’s like, yeah, they traveled to Boston at Baugh’s direction to go to the conference and then they at the end of this, when they’re being interviewed, they must have realized that they had a shit ton of evidence in WhatsApp because at this point this is where they’re kind of going to each other saying, Hey, go to WhatsApp and make sure you delete all those threads of all that shit that we’ve been saying that we’re definitely going to get busted

00:09:38:46 – 00:09:40:13
Keith
on. Delete all that shit.

00:09:40:13 – 00:10:10:23
Keith
And so at some point eBay is trying to find out more about this internal investigation that Baugh and them started. I’m pretty sure eBay doesn’t know that the CEO and the comms chief were involved at this point. And then Harville and Baugh starts talking about not letting Zea talk to anybody because I think she was the weakest link from what I read.

00:10:10:27 – 00:10:28:55
Keith
They say, hey, I’m not going to let you. They say to Zea, hey, I’m not going to let you speak to this in counsel in-house counsel for eBay anymore. He’s had enough time with you. Let me know if he reaches out to you. If he does, I will brief somebody else and he will represent you. Great work. You’re awesome.

00:10:28:59 – 00:10:52:21
Keith
And then they started getting emails from eBay where it basically says you need to come in and do interviews with eBay’s outside lawyers, which is, I would say maybe even one step further up the oh shit chain. You know, you have your in-house lawyers that do most of the investigations. When you start paying outside attorneys to come in and do investigations, that’s one level deeper here.

00:10:52:27 – 00:11:17:33
Keith
They’re there. They seriously mean they mean business at this point. So these individuals need to sit down and be interviewed by eBay’s internal and external legal teams. Okay. And so at this point, they must be shitting a brick and Baugh and Harville and Popp and Gilbert they’re just like, listen, we’re just going to refuse to meet with eBay’s counsel.

00:11:17:33 – 00:11:43:10
Keith
We need to, quote unquote, send a strong message that we’re not fucking around. And then Harville says things like, they don’t want eBay to form an opinion about or be able to provide a recommendation for punitive action pending any additional information from PD and or negative media. So what he just said in there is, I don’t want to say something to eBay that would be used against me criminally with the police department.

00:11:43:10 – 00:12:10:44
Keith
That’s the whole Fifth Amendment thing you’ve probably heard of. And Popp goes out and says, Hey, we all have each other’s back. That’s all that matters. They’re fucked. And Harville says, Agreed. And then Harville says, the paper trail leads nowhere. All their findings are speculative and they have to confer with police to get anything substantial, substantial of which they probably would not be given. Popp.

00:12:10:49 – 00:12:38:43
Keith
Popp then replies back to eBay’s legal and says, Hey, I acknowledge that there is an quote unquote active criminal investigation and I’m going to refuse to meet with eBay’s outside lawyers without my attorney. And then Baugh sends a very similar email back to eBay about this interview. They said, You’ve indicated that there is a possible ongoing criminal investigation in which my colleagues have been named.

00:12:38:48 – 00:12:43:17
Keith
So he says, I don’t want to be interviewed by eBay’s counsel either.

00:12:43:17 – 00:12:58:25
Keith
And then August 30th of 2019, Harville forwarded to the same WhatsApp group that they all the criminals are in an email from an eBay lawyer requiring Harville to turn in his eBay computers and devices.

00:12:58:25 – 00:13:01:55
Keith
And I have the snippet here that was in the court documentation.

00:13:01:55 – 00:13:20:09
Keith
It just says, In order to enable eBay to preserve all relevant information, please immediately today turn in your eBay issued mobile telephones without deleting or altering any information on it slash them to the okay. And then at some center attention somebody’s name.

00:13:20:09 – 00:13:28:48
Keith
In addition, please advise us immediately if you use any personal device for any eBay work related communications, be sure to preserve all of those unaltered.

00:13:28:53 – 00:13:49:06
Keith
I’ll tell you what, he probably stomped the fuck out of this request because it sounded like they were deleting stuff. Sound like they were using personal devices. It sounded like there was a lot of stuff they were doing they shouldn’t have been doing that they’re now going to get caught because of stuff like this where eBay is like, Turn your shit over and we want to analyze it.

00:13:49:11 – 00:14:09:56
Keith
So when they get that request, what’s Harville do he goes directly to all his conspirators and says, Want me to wipe it? And then surprisingly, I thought they’d say yes. I thought that would be like, wipe that son of a bitch. Let’s go. No. Popp instructed Harville to quote unquote, standby in response, and Baugh stated, Don’t do anything until we speak to an attorney.

00:14:10:01 – 00:14:38:10
Keith
Don’t turn phone in either. And then he says, Just just say copy. Just let them know that you got it, don’t you know, don’t give them anything extra, basically. And Harville says, okay, I’m just finished and will give them my eBay phone and they know I have it here. So what that just said is I’m only giving them the eBay stuff that they know about and not my personal stuff.

00:14:38:15 – 00:14:47:08
Keith
And August 30th, 2019, eBay finally placed Baugh, Harville, and Popp on administrative leave. So we’re sort of getting to the end of the case here.

00:14:47:08 – 00:15:05:02
Keith
So eBay looked at this evidence. They looked at Harville’s iPhone, and they determined much of the data has been deleted. Surprise, surprise. They’ve been talking about deleting data the whole time. And then the FBI says, well, yes, they took a look at it and they said, yeah, yeah, there have been a lot of deletions here.

00:15:05:02 – 00:15:33:09
Keith
But let me let me tell you a little more about this phone. They said there’s some iPhone messages here that were deleted. So we know this. We know the application. We know that there are messages and we know that there are communications between people that were deleted. All the phone contacts have been deleted. So any any like useful information of who that phone might have been talking to that’s gone.

00:15:33:14 – 00:15:34:18
Keith
Web browsing.

00:15:34:18 – 00:15:57:31
Keith
So it’s hard to explain. Sometimes you can see what people do, but you can still not pull all the deleted data back. And what they were able to do is able to see that they were browsing for the DEFCON Boston conferences that they said that they were going to visit. And another website associated with the Natick Police and Fire, a live audio feed.

00:15:57:36 – 00:16:20:33
Keith
But they didn’t they didn’t have this, the content of it. It’s kind of like seeing somebody call the phone number, but you didn’t hear the conversation. That’s sort of what they had it in the computer sense, where they could see the activity happened, but they didn’t see the actual content of the activity. So in that phone, there was some stuff that was suspicious, that point of these people doing stuff that they shouldn’t have been doing.

00:16:20:38 – 00:16:44:08
Keith
End of the day, there was a lot of investigation. There are some indictments now out of this eBay crew or groups that were charged. The first group was Baugh and Harville because they kind of managed it and ran a lot of the operations themselves. They were probably the biggest group that was charged and they had the most counts. And that’s the one I’m going to read to you and then the other people or just a subset.

00:16:44:09 – 00:17:04:51
Keith
And I’m not going to go through everybody because they were kind of they’re more the underlings and it would just be so repetitive. You would get bored of it. So let me just hit Baugh Baugh and Harville harder here. They had count one, which is conspiracy to commit cyberstalking. They had counts two through nine. So a bunch of the counts are actual cyberstalking.

00:17:04:56 – 00:17:29:05
Keith
Then they had counts ten, 11, ten and 12 I’m sorry, ten through 12, which is witness tampering and then counts 13 to 15, which is destruction of records in a federal investigation. So if you take all that together, basically it’s cyberstalking and then it’s trying to cover up our tracks from the police department and make it look like it was all these other innocent people that had nothing to do with.

00:17:29:05 – 00:17:29:39
Keith
OK.

00:17:29:39 – 00:17:51:54
Keith
So that was the indictments. And you can imagine the other groups. So you had what were they? Gilbert, Popp, Stephanie and maybe some others I’m missing off the top of my head. They were charged in a different group, but the number of counts were less because they did less in the crime.

00:17:51:54 – 00:18:07:30
Keith
So what I’m going to do is move forward to they pled guilty. All these people pled guilty in some way, shape or form to different counts. And I’ll tell you specifically which counts. They are under sentencing in a minute.

00:18:07:34 – 00:18:26:16
Keith
But what I wanted to do was we talked all this time about the bad guys and eBay and I even said victims and newsletters a lot didn’t use their names, but I wanted to give the victims a chance to have their voice heard in this case because they went through the ringer. So I have victim impact statements from Ina.

00:18:26:21 – 00:18:26:59
Keith
And David.

00:18:26:59 – 00:18:42:00
Keith
I’m going to try to read them in their entirety and I’m going to put it on the screen for you. I know my reading is not the best. I’m going to do the best I can for audio listeners because I just wanted to give their viewpoint in this. And then I’m going to talk about what happened to the criminals and we’ll end up wrapping up the case.

00:18:42:09 – 00:19:00:28
Keith
So Ina says David and I got married in 1988 and lived in a small apartment while we saved up to buy a house. Seven years later, we bought a fixer upper and worked nights and weekends to make it the house of our dreams. In August 2019, it became our prison. I was afraid to answer the front door or get the mail.

00:19:00:32 – 00:19:18:28
Keith
I was afraid to go for a walk. I was afraid to leave the house. But I was also afraid to be inside. And each evening, when dust settled and night fell, my anxiety grew. The defendants employed psychological warfare. They primed us for fear, and it worked. I began feeling pressure. When breathing. I had nightmares. I began losing weight.

00:19:18:28 – 00:19:37:44
Keith
And I had trouble sleeping, fearing we would get, quote unquote, swatted. If you don’t know what that is, hit our glossary on our website. I’m not going to stop in the letter here, which will put our lives in danger if the police came to our home with guns drawn. Many of our fears were realized, adding to my panic.

00:19:37:49 – 00:19:59:00
Keith
I was doxxed multiple times as part of the public harassment. That’s where they posted their home address online on the Internet. Strangers were coming to our home. The death threats were not subtle. A book on surviving the loss of a spouse, spouse, a funeral wreath, a pig mask from a horror movie in which the villain kidnaps, tortures and kills the victims.

00:19:59:05 – 00:20:18:19
Keith
I told you, I think that was a horror movie. I’ve seen that before. And then it goes on to say. And then we spotted a van tailing David. We brought the horror to our doorstep. I’m sorry it said this brought the horror to our doorstep. Knowing this unrelenting cyberstalking was also watching us in real life and about to physically attack us.

00:20:18:24 – 00:20:39:28
Keith
This day, after the police left our house without having identified our stalker, we sat in our living room in shock. Once again, we were all alone, and it was growing dark outside. David had no color in his face. He was sweating and he was not nauseous. Nauseous. Wow. I can’t read today. I thought he was having a heart attack.

00:20:39:32 – 00:21:02:57
Keith
Compounding my fear of a potentially life threatening health emergency was the terror that our stalker was outside watching the house and would see an ambulance take him away. Defendants Jim Baugh and David Harville had our neighbors on edge, even frightening the boy next door, unaware I had just frantically called the police or police after seeing a van followed David down our street.

00:21:03:01 – 00:21:17:00
Keith
The boy’s father came over and asked if we had seen the man who had been acting suspiciously outside his home. I could see the concern for the safety of his children in his eyes, and I could not reassure him. He was one of the neighbors who received porn at his home address in David’s

00:21:17:00 – 00:21:21:34
Keith
name. This wasn’t a corporate security operation.

00:21:21:39 – 00:21:46:58
Keith
Agreed. This was a deliberate, cruel attempt to destroy us personally, professionally, financially, in the eyes of our neighbors, in the eyes of our readers and advertisers, and in the eyes of police. David and I started our publishing business in 1999 with with the same passion and hard work we used to fix up our home. We built it up to a site that online sellers could rely on for news and information.

00:21:47:03 – 00:22:08:43
Keith
The defendants tried to burn my business to the ground, and I still worry they may get what they wished in media reports about my crimes. Instead of referring to me as an ecommerce expert and author, they refer to me as eBay critic. That’s devastating. And that’s the reason I wander and that’s the reason why I do what I wanted to read their victim impact statements here.

00:22:08:48 – 00:22:42:15
Keith
I watch eBay cultivate a narrative that we were just bloggers rather than a 20 year veterans of the e-commerce industry for whom they had placed their executives at our disposal for interviews all the way up to CEO Meg Whitman, then CEO John Donahoe, and eventually Devin Wenig before he became CEO. Hint, hint. When I checked Google for news about this case, admittedly compulsively, at times I’ve seen Google Display commonly searched questions that included What did the Steiners do to eBay?

00:22:42:20 – 00:23:01:55
Keith
The defendants exploited that victim blaming an active actively engaged in it themselves. And you remember, I didn’t talk about that or they purposely wanted to blame the victims. She goes on to say we had to watch in silence as defendants Jim Baugh and Dave Harville asked the government for information about any criminal investigations they had conducted into us, the victims.

00:23:02:00 – 00:23:20:47
Keith
They asked for information, linking us to others and suggested that we had posed a security risk to eBay and its employees. They created fake evidence to suggest we, a threat, threatened eBay executives to show the Natick police and then try to use that as part of their criminal defense. I spend too much time thinking about the what ifs.

00:23:20:52 – 00:23:46:58
Keith
What if they had succeeded in turning the police against us? It hurts me to this day. After 20 years of devoting my career to helping sellers and small businesses succeed, the defendants tried to destroy me and it hasn’t stopped. There are days I feel an overwhelming anxiety. I still have nights when I can’t sleep. I think about people who did this to us with their law enforcement, military and intelligence backgrounds and if they will perversely blame us for their

00:23:46:58 – 00:23:48:55
Keith
fate.

00:23:49:00 – 00:24:07:43
Keith
I think about how Jim Baugh and David Harville crept into my property to break in as I was asleep in my bedroom. I think about how much we lost, how close we came to losing everything and I worry about how much longer we can keep our business going. I still get nervous around strangers in stores, or if I see a car following me for an extended period of time.

00:24:07:48 – 00:24:29:33
Keith
I still find myself running to the window if I hear something unusual outside, even if the sound of a helicopter can set me on edge. I still carry pepper spray when I leave the house, but for a long time I had carried it even inside the house. The same distress applies to my work. If a new company or freelance reporter reaches out to me, we wonder if someone involved in the harassment is behind it.

00:24:29:38 – 00:24:54:51
Keith
I still get reminders of the defendant’s depravity when I check my email spam related to the online newsletters they signed me up for. Online sellers who are also victims of actions of who these defendants who harm the reputation of the platform on which they rely, causing some of the shoppers to swear off using eBay ever again. Sorry I murdered a few of these sentences.

00:24:54:51 – 00:25:23:25
Keith
A long passage. She continues and says these individuals and small businesses now fear contacting eBay when they have a problem. They fear reaching out to us because they’re afraid eBay will punish them. I rely on sources. Gathering and verifying information is the heart of what I do as a reporter. In his sentencing memorandum, defendant Phillip Cook referenced a friendly persona of defendants that created defendants had created to try to influence

00:25:23:25 – 00:25:23:50
Keith
me.

00:25:23:55 – 00:25:51:24
Keith
I think Phillip Cook might be another person that didn’t show up in the earlier documents that I researched. She goes on to say, not only does the victim of not only does the victim of stalking mess with your capacity to trust one defendant admited that they had planted a mole some sort. Despite my best efforts, I’m angry. When the government unveiled charges against the defendants in 2020 reporters or TV’s cameras showed up at my front door that day and they tried to interview my neighbors.

00:25:51:29 – 00:26:12:47
Keith
I’m especially angered, angry and upset when I see how this has impacted David, whose strength saved me throughout this ongoing nightmare, but at a great cost to his physical and mental well-being. While our instinct as journalists is to speak out, we have used restraint to protect our integrity of the criminal case. No one will ever know the toll it has taken on us.

00:26:12:52 – 00:26:31:48
Keith
It also has made us more withdrawn for friends, not only during the attacks but in the intervening years. We’re not always the best company. Feeling unable to talk about the case with others, but also finding ourselves dwelling on it. As much as I’m grateful that we were spared a trial, I feel deprived of the answers a trial would have provided.

00:26:31:53 – 00:26:40:05
Keith
We would have still. We are still in the dark about much of what was behind what happened to us. Unanswered questions is a very real form of mental

00:26:40:05 – 00:26:56:38
Keith
torture. In some ways it is very simple. The CEO of a Fortune 500 company publicly eviscerated by activist investors pressuring the board, issued a directive to his PR and security team to do whatever it took to end our reporting.

00:26:56:43 – 00:27:13:34
Keith
But when I think about what happened to us and how it must been played out, whether it’s when I’m doing a chore or sitting down to write a victim impact statement, I go down a rabbit hole, my mind goes in circles. The trauma impacted my ability to process what happened, and I lacked some important pieces of the puzzle.

00:27:13:36 – 00:27:38:48
Keith
I hope someday I’ll be able. I hope someday I’ll be provided the conviction and sentencing of the seven defendants as powerful and vital to our healing. But it doesn’t mean David and I get to return to normal. The defendant’s crimes they have. I’m sorry. The defendant’s crimes have had a profound impact on me. My husband and I are our livelihood.

00:27:38:53 – 00:27:54:56
Keith
They upend our lives, and we’re still dealing with the fallout after three long years. And after our beautiful home that we spent years to make a haven from the outside world will never give us a sense of safety. We used to take for granted a feeling that every person should feel in their own

00:27:54:56 – 00:28:05:06
Keith
home. That was hers. So now David has one and I will go through his. And I apologize they’re along, but I wanted to give them at least a say in this.

00:28:05:12 – 00:28:27:11
Keith
So he says, I know and I have spent more than 23 years of our 34 year marriage working together, covering e-commerce from its very near, very early years. Our website e-commerce sites grew up alongside e-commerce. Our readers who are stay at home parents, seniors looking to supplement their income. People with disabilities who are able to create a business tailored to their needs.

00:28:27:15 – 00:28:49:40
Keith
And entrepreneurs whom selling it online held the promise of a level playing field in addition to keeping them informed. We built a company where merchants could congregate and speak their truths without fear of reprisal. We were proud to have built a front of the site ourselves and to have grown it into a successful online publication and self sustaining business.

00:28:49:45 – 00:29:08:21
Keith
The success of our business depends on online sellers and e-commerce, including eBay. Thriving. For eBay to have thought otherwise, it was not only misguided, but dangerous. Their CEO became so consumed with our reporting that he issued an edict that resonated through the company. Take her down.

00:29:08:21 – 00:29:14:04
Keith
The statement was shared by eBay’s COO and countless other executives, but indicted and unindicted.

00:29:14:19 – 00:29:36:42
Keith
eBay what happened to us in the summer of 2019 is deeply scarred me psychologically and put us financial jeopardy at an age when most people are beginning to plan for retirement. The defenders have stolen over three years of our lives and the repercussions of their actions will reverberate far beyond the personal toll it’s taken from taking on us.

00:29:36:47 – 00:30:02:55
Keith
I’m still trying to understand eBay’s actions against us and how their employees could go, quote unquote, all in on a plan you’d expect to be devised by the most disturbed of sociopath. Our emotional well-being has been shaken not only by the initial terror inflicted by our perpetrators, but also the ensuing sleepless nights, the anxiety, anger, depression, insecurity about future, an immense amount of bandwidth that this case has taken up in our

00:30:02:55 – 00:30:04:34
Keith
lives.

00:30:04:38 – 00:30:35:13
Keith
There have been devastating consequences to our business and financial well-being as well. We have had to cash out CDs earmarked for our retirement to make for make up for the shortfall in business revenue we have experienced due to eBay’s actions. And we ensure that we have enough income to pay our daily living expenses. I’ve applied for and began receiving Social Security this year at 62 rather than 67, and had a long planned, rather than 67, as I had long planned, to pay household expenses.

00:30:35:17 – 00:30:59:28
Keith
Having to take Social Security now will have an irrevocable effect on our future home income. Since the payments are substantially smaller than I’ve had been able to wait. Because of our new economic reality, we have had to slash our health insurance costs, opting for a higher deductible and more limited network of doctors. We’re now both older than 60, and at a point in our lives, when medical considerations become more of a reality.

00:30:59:28 – 00:31:22:59
Keith
I can’t underscore strongly enough how dangerous this was to us, how dangerous it is to others. The criminal complaint was a glimpse into a very dark and disturbing story. The defense had prepared a false dossier to present to Natick Police, painting us as quote unquote, persons of interest who had made threats against a company executives. eBay had our personal records.

00:31:23:06 – 00:31:42:29
Keith
Some had been obtained when we were signed up for the site and other more detailed information had been secured by other means. They had our Social Security numbers, banking information, and had other important personal data. If the perpetrators had been caught, how were they planning on using this information against us?

00:31:42:29 – 00:31:55:59
Keith
Defendant Baugh in particular was eager to please his bosses, even willing to harm us physically by sending members of a Samoan gain to our home. Members who he emphasized were not quote unquote good guys and whatever happened would be out of his control.

00:31:56:03 – 00:32:23:14
Keith
The behavior of eBay, the defendants and the unindicted coconspirators has implications far beyond what they did to us. This is a premeditated campaign by a Fortune 500 company with nearly limitless resources to threaten, intimidate to journalists simply because the CEO did not like the content of our articles. A cooperation I’m sorry, a corporation that feels entitled to trample on a journalist.

00:32:23:14 – 00:32:47:52
Keith
First Amendment enters dangerous territory in a country that depends on its press to write freely and truthfully. And what if eBay had been successful in shutting down our reporting? Was this the protocol for handling publications that got out of line? As a former CEO, Devin Wenig texted his chief communications officer, Fuck them. The Journal is next on the list, referring to the Wall Street Journal.

00:32:47:57 – 00:33:05:02
Keith
But the most painful aspect of this nightmare was that the witness the effect it had on my wife, Ina, to say that she is the most important thing in my life is not expressing it fully. I know her heart, her moral compass, her ethics and her compassion. She is simply the best person I know to see her. Targeted, terrorized and traumatized.

00:33:05:02 – 00:33:05:14
Keith
It was

00:33:05:14 – 00:33:30:07
Keith
excruciating. Defendant Baugh was aware of his actions and more willing to follow the directions of his superiors at eBay to terrorize my wife and me. The Defendant has not taken full responsibility for his crimes, instead stating that his unique skills set his experience at government agencies and other security organizations was the reason eBay hired him, and he was simply carrying out the job expected of him.

00:33:30:12 – 00:33:38:17
Keith
Baugh may have been a hired gun instructed by his supervisors at eBay to find and destroy us, but it was beyond question that he knew his methods were

00:33:38:17 – 00:33:55:10
Keith
illegal. As the defense motions for discovery during the defense trial mounted, we were in the unusual position of supporting them, hoping that more discovery might bring answers to the questions. We had sought closure and to encourage the U.S. Attorney’s Office to dig deeper.

00:33:55:15 – 00:34:32:03
Keith
Why had a Fortune 500 company put a target on our backs? How high into the C-suite of eBay had this gone? How had the eBay COO lied to investigators and destroyed evidence not been indicted? Who else within the company had approved of this operation? Either overtly or tacitly? Unfortunately, this is not closure for us. Baugh’s discovery shows that there were unindicted coconspirators, yet eBay was allowed to essentially investigate themselves and later give a PowerPoint presentation to the government to lobby against prosecution.

00:34:32:08 – 00:34:37:41
Keith
As that is true, by the way, I read the PowerPoint was just too detailed to bring here though.

00:34:37:41 – 00:34:49:41
Keith
As for defendant Harville, despite trying to minimize his role, he was squarely in the middle of this operation. He was in Natick. He tried to break into our garage to affix a GPS tracker to our car. He was in one of the vehicles surveilling us.

00:34:49:43 – 00:35:03:11
Keith
He had documents discrediting us at the ready to show Natick Police in the event he was stopped. All that in addition to obstructing justice and destroying evidence, which, despite having some charges dropped, he pled to the facts before the

00:35:03:11 – 00:35:17:42
Keith
court. And now repentant was the defendant after being caught with the Natick Police Department, obtain records from Boston rental car company Harville began making threats to sue the NPD for violating his civil rights.

00:35:17:47 – 00:35:38:55
Keith
Defendant Baugh joked Harville will scream violation of his privacy if he knew NPD had his name. It’s ironic that Harville would be so concerned about protecting his civil liberties just days after willfully violating ours. I’d also only note that after he was indicted, he only took steps to protect his own business venture, selling nonmetallic tactical weapons online. The type that bad actors might use

00:35:38:56 – 00:35:52:24
Keith
We’re trying to slip a weapon past airport metal detectors by incorporating and adding his wife’s name and president. He added his wife’s name as president of the company in the event he was found guilty of a

00:35:52:24 – 00:36:06:12
Keith
felony. Again, ironic that he took these measures to protect his company after participating in a conspiracy to destroy ours. The past three years have been a nightmare and the cumulative effects of this case have been devastating to us.

00:36:06:17 – 00:36:26:48
Keith
I’ve experienced extreme I’ve experienced extreme anxiety and anger, deep depression, hundreds of sleepless nights, and a residual mistrust that affects my relationships and how I interact with people. After decades spanning building our business, I’m worried that our financial future is in jeopardy.

00:36:26:48 – 00:36:34:56
Keith
I’ve labored over my victim impact statements for two years. We may both write for a living, but this has been the most difficult assignment I’ve ever had.

00:36:35:01 – 00:36:55:18
Keith
This is the only opportunity we have in a criminal case to express the enormous, enormous impact that the defendant’s actions have had on our lives. I’m struggling to get a place where I can forgive the seven defendants, the unindicted coconspirators and eBay for the heinous acts against us. I’ve been told that to begin to heal, I need to get past my anger.

00:36:55:22 – 00:37:19:23
Keith
I’m not there yet. I’ve held on to this anger, afraid that if I let it go, no one will make eBay fully accountable for their actions. If they are not, that is what they are. That is there to deter corporations from mobilizing security agents, agencies, and their security own department from repeating eBay’s actions. I’m so sorry. Let me read that again.

00:37:19:27 – 00:37:36:43
Keith
If they are not, what is there to do. If they are not, what is there to deter corporations from mobilizing security agencies and their security own department from repeating eBay’s actions? This is too important to let go of my anger.

00:37:36:43 – 00:37:43:15
Keith
I sincerely hope that the court, in sentencing the defendants, will consider that and make them fully

00:37:43:15 – 00:37:50:20
Keith
accountable. So here we get to the sentencing. I am sorry that it took so long, but I wanted to give them their voice.

00:37:50:20 – 00:37:54:02
Keith
So we have James Baugh. He was 47 of San Jose, California.

00:37:54:17 – 00:38:15:02
Keith
He ends up getting 57 months. So just over four years, just under five years and two years of supervised release. He was ordered to pay a fine of $40,000. As a director, that may not be a lot to him. I don’t know. Harville, 50, of Las Vegas, was sentenced to two years in prison and two years of supervised release.

00:38:15:07 – 00:38:43:09
Keith
He’s ordered to pay $20,000. Veronica Zea. She was the one that was sort of the underling caught up in the surveillance. She’s 28, San Jose, California, and she was a contractor. She got two years probation with her first year to be served at home confinement and a $5,000 fine. And she pled guilty to conspiracy to commit cyberstalking and conspiracy to tamper with

00:38:43:09 – 00:38:45:51
Keith
witnesses.

00:38:45:55 – 00:39:15:09
Keith
Let’s see, Stephanie Popp. Okay. I didn’t say it up front. All these people pled guilty, by the way. So they’re being sentenced. And Stephanie Popp, she was 34 of Louisville, Kentucky. She was the senior manager of the Global intelligence. She was sentenced to one year and one day in prison and two years of probation. That kind of surprised me. I thought she was going to be pure probation like like Zea but they actually gave her a year in prison.

00:39:15:13 – 00:39:43:03
Keith
Stephanie Stockwell, she was sentenced to two years of probation with one year to be served in home confinement. So basically, Stockwell and Zea they got probation and home confinement. Popp, Baugh, and Harville got actual prison time and it varied depending on what it was that they pled to. And each of them pled to different things. Baugh and Harville pled to more of the charges because they had more charges.

00:39:43:03 – 00:39:50:28
Keith
And then once you got down to people like Zea, they just pled to a couple of charges.

00:39:50:28 – 00:40:06:56
Keith
And now lastly, we have Brian Gilbert, which was he was the former police captain. He pled guilty to one count, conspiracy to cyberstalking and count two of conspiracy to witness tamper. He’s currently awaiting sentencing. So I don’t have his sentencing. I think it’s because I read something.

00:40:06:58 – 00:40:16:15
Keith
It looked like he was asking for more time because he was getting cancer treatment or something along those lines. So there will be a sentencing. It sounds like it’s just going to be later on for him.

00:40:16:15 – 00:40:24:45
Keith
Okay. So at the end of the day, those are the people you should go… What happened to eBay themselves? Well, eBay themselves, the company was criminally charged.

00:40:24:49 – 00:40:52:22
Keith
They had six counts. The first four were stalking, count five was witness tampering. Count six was destruction of records in a federal investigation. So it sounded like there was this PowerPoint presentation that happened between eBay and prosecutors, at least according to the victims. And it came back and eBay’s agreed to pay a $3 million criminal penalty for the harassment and intimidation campaign and for the obstruction of the investigation.

00:40:52:27 – 00:41:19:39
Keith
And I sat there for a minute. I was like $3 million for eBay. Now, don’t get me wrong, $3 million is a lot of money. A lot of money. But for eBay, that’s not a lot of money for eBay. So if you’re going to penalize eBay, $3 million seems like it’s not a lot. And according the few documents that were there, it looks like they deferred the rest of the prosecution against eBay.

00:41:19:39 – 00:41:37:57
Keith
And I don’t know exactly right now if it’s if there’s conditions on the money or what there is. But I did see that there was a deferred prosecution. So it could be just that they pay the money and that’s it at the end. But that’s where the that’s where the case ends. As of today, when I’m recording of this at the end of January of 2024.

00:41:38:02 – 00:41:55:33
Keith
So, holy shit, that’s it. Final thoughts. This case was really complex. I am sorry I jumped around it. Maybe even missed a couple bullets for you. There was so much information about what they did and I… The parts I tried to cut related to other parts so I couldn’t cut them out and give you just part of the story.

00:41:55:33 – 00:42:25:14
Keith
I had to give you a lot of the story. So in short. Thank you. Thank you. If you’re watching to this part of of the show, thank you for sticking in this long. So some more of my thoughts. I was really bummed not to see the executives actually get charged. I mean, it was a former CEO if they wanted to if they wanted to send a message, they could have hit that former CEO and they could hit the communications chief, because from the evidence I showed you guys, it looked like they were very knowledgeable.

00:42:25:14 – 00:42:48:40
Keith
At least the communications chief was very knowledgeable about this whole operation that was going on. If you were able to argue that CEO out of the picture, okay. But I think a lot of those things, they show that he was angry and he was showing his anger at The Wall Street Journal. I think I think if you didn’t have electronic evidence, the guy definitely knew behind the scenes.

00:42:48:45 – 00:43:06:14
Keith
It was nice, though, to see the company charged. When I saw the individuals and I did all the research and, you know, over 120 slides of research for this, at the end of the day, I was like, What about this, the company? And at the end of the day, they did they charge the company. I was like, thank God.

00:43:06:14 – 00:43:34:28
Keith
But it wasn’t as deep and as in-depth as all the paperwork it was for the individuals. I was just happy, happy that the company at least got some kind of penalty or some kind of charge towards them. And like I said, I thought it was a pretty, pretty small fee for eBay. I mean, if you want to send a message for C-level employees not harassing people, I would expect it to start over 10 million at least.

00:43:34:33 – 00:43:59:20
Keith
So when I saw $3 million, I was like, eBay got out of this so easy. Yeah, they had to pay outside counsel and pay for investigations and stuff. But 3 million is nothing to eBay. So before I give you a preview of next week, I just want to remind you now, please hit like thumbs up. Subscribe, follow whatever it is on your application that you’re watching this on.

00:43:59:25 – 00:44:11:32
Keith
I really appreciate all those little things. Those likes put me in front of other people and make more views on these things and it really helps me out and I really appreciate it. That’s pretty much the only thing I’ll ask from you.

00:44:11:32 – 00:44:20:06
Keith
Next week. Next week has an individual that I put on your screen right now. This is Dr. James, quote unquote, murder for hire

00:44:20:19 – 00:44:27:10
Keith
Wan. And I found another doctor that went out there and tried to hire an assassin on the dark

00:44:27:10 – 00:44:43:05
Keith
web. If you remember a season or two ago, we talked about Dr. Ronald Ilg. Did a very similar exercise against his ex-wife. And it was just an I like this case I gave you today. It just didn’t sound real. Well, guess what?

00:44:43:10 – 00:44:54:22
Keith
I found another doctor and we’re going to talk about him next week. So I hope you come back and join me and we’ll go through that case and hopefully be just as enjoyable as the other ones. Thanks. Bye.

DrKeithJones.com

Cyberstalked By eBay – Act 3: The Interview

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