Former eBay employee gets 18 months in jail for ‘heinous’ cyberstalking campaign

BOSTON, July 27 (Reuters) – A former supervisor of security operations at eBay Inc (EBAY.O) has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for his role in a cyberbullying campaign targeting a Massachusetts couple whose online newsletter was considered critical e-commerce business.

Boston federal prosecutors said Philip Cooke, a retired Santa Clara, Calif., Police captain, and other employees were involved in a scheme to harass the couple via Twitter and sending them disturbing packages, including live cockroaches.

US District Judge Allison Burroughs called the actions of the employees “truly abominable” when she sentenced Cooke, who also must serve a year of house arrest and pay a fine of $ 15,000.

“It’s almost unfathomable to me,” Burroughs said. “I’m not sure if I saw him on TV I would find him believable.”

The two victims, David and Ina Steiner, spoke in court, describing to the judge a bizarre and nightmarish ordeal that left them afraid to leave their home in Natick, Massachusetts, and worried for their safety.

“We were terrified,” said Ina Steiner.

Cooke, a former supervisor of security operations at eBay’s European and Asian offices, was the first of seven former eBay employees who were indicted in the case to be sentenced. Four others also pleaded guilty.

Prosecutors said Cooke attended a planning meeting in August 2019 where eBay employees discussed targeting the couple with threatening messages; unwanted deliveries like a bloody Halloween pig mask; and covert surveillance.

They did so after two senior executives, including former chief executive Devin Wenig, expressed frustration with the newsletter, EcommerceBytes, according to prosecutors and a lawsuit brought by the couple. Read more

Prosecutors said Wenig texted the other executive after the newsletter’s editor posted an article on eBay, saying it was time to “take it down.” Wenig has never been charged and has denied knowing about the scheme.

Cooke, in court, said he should have sought to prevent what has become “horrible behavior to please the boss.”

“It is clear that everything was wrong from start to finish,” he said.

Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Dan Grebler

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