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By Spencer Soper and Janelle LawrenceJune 15, 2020, 1:10 PM EDT Updated on June 15, 2020, 10:13 PM EDT

EBay Ex-CEO's Text Triggered ScareCampaign With Cockroaches, FuneralWreath

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Attempt to silence blogger after critical coverage, FBI says ‘Take her down,’ Wenig is alleged to have written to executive

eBay Executives Charged with Harassment

Last year, EBay Inc.’s then-Chief Executive Officer Devin Wenig fired off textsto a colleague expressing his ire over unflattering coverage by a blogger ofhis oversight of the e-commerce site. What followed, prosecutors said, was acriminal scheme by his underlings to cyber-stalk the couple behind theonline newsletter.

Wenig isn’t charged in the case, but two former top EBay security executivesand four other ex-employees were. While there’s no suggestion in courtpapers that Wenig knew of the plot, prosecutors say his angry emailstriggered the scheme, and they play a central role in the narrative spelledout by the government.

“Take her down,” Wenig is alleged to have written in response to a post bythe blogger.

The charges come less than a year after Wenig stepped down as EBay’s CEOamid pressure from activist investors to break the company up. Thecompany said in a statement Monday that while “Wenig’s communicationswere inappropriate, there was no evidence that he knew in advance aboutor authorized the actions that were later directed toward the blogger andher husband.”

Wenig said in a statement he knew nothing of the alleged activities: “I havespent my career defending press freedoms. What these charges allege isunconscionable.”

Federal prosecutors claim James Baugh and David Harville led the elaborateharassment campaign, which allegedly included sending live cockroachesand a funeral wreath to the Massachusetts couple that publishes thenewsletter. The ex-EBay employees also tried to place a GPS tracker on avehicle belonging to the couple and sent them a bloody pig Halloween maskand a book on surviving the death of a spouse, according to the FBI.

“We are going to crush this lady,” an employee described in the filing asExecutive 2 texted to Executive 1, who is Wenig, according to a personfamiliar with the matter who asked not to be identified.

Devin Wenig Photographer: Jacob Kepler/Bloomberg

An article in the newsletter last year about litigation involving EBay led thetwo unidentified members of the online marketplace’s executive leadershipteam to vow revenge, the FBI claims.

The executives sent text messages to their security team saying it was timeto “take down” the newsletter’s editor, according to an affidavit filed incourt by the FBI.

The indictment doesn’t refer to Wenig by name. It refers to a storypublished on Aug. 1 with the headline “eBay RICO Lawsuit Meant to CurbSeller Exodus to Amazon?” The indictment quotes from the story:“[Executive 1] has been unable to stop a decline in market sales, but tryingto dissuade sellers from turning to Amazon (and trying to get Amazon tostop recruiting sellers) may not be the best tactic.”

Online newsletter ecommercebytes published a story under that headlinethe same day with the same verbatim language referring to Wenig.

Last year, EBay hired a consultant that suggested the company promotefavorable online content about EBay with a goal of pushing the onlinenewsletter down in search results, a common form of reputationmanagement. But another campaign unfolded simultaneously that directlytargeted the couple in a harassing way, according to the indictment.

EBay said in a statement that “neither the company nor any current EBayemployee was indicted” and that it “was notified by law enforcement inAugust 2019 of suspicious actions by its security personnel toward a blogger,who writes about the company, and her husband” and “immediatelylaunched a comprehensive investigation.” As a result, eBay said, it“terminated all involved employees, including the company’s former chiefcommunications officer, in September 2019.”

EBay said it had refrained from discussing the case earlier to avoidcompromising the government’s investigation.

Baugh, 45, was EBay’s senior director of safety and security. Harville, 48,was the company’s director of global resiliency and, according to hisLinkedIn profile, a former captain in the Army and program coordinator forthe Justice Department. Both have been arrested. Neither immediatelyresponded to LinkedIn messages seeking comment on the charges.

The U.S. says Baugh, Harville and a third associate went to the couple’shome in the Boston suburb of Natick in August planning to put the GPSdevice on their sport utility vehicle but found it locked in the garage. Theymonitored local police radio communications during the attempt, accordingto the FBI affidavit.

The alleged harassment squad also sent pornographic magazines to thevictim’s neighbors in packages that implicated the newsletter, the FBI says.

In meetings with staff, Baugh “referred to having executive support forthese actions” and stressed that the campaign be kept secret, the FBI said.In one meeting, the FBI said, he showed a photo of what he called a Samoangang and claimed he would send the gang to the publisher’s home if theharassment didn’t silence the newsletter.

“We have not seen something like this before,” Andrew Lelling, the U.S.attorney for Massachusetts, said at a news conference.

(Updates with Wenig as source of texts in indictment)

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