Former eBay Employees Plead Guilty to Cyberstalking Campaign

BOSTON – Two former employees of eBay, Inc. pleaded guilty today to their roles in a cyberstalking campaign targeting the editor and publisher of a newsletter that eBay executives viewed as critical of the company.

Stephanie Popp, 32, of San Jose, Calif., eBay’s former Senior Manager of Global Intelligence, and Veronica Zea, 26, of San Jose, Calif., a former eBay contractor who worked as an intelligence analyst in eBay’s Global Intelligence Center (GIC), pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit cyberstalking and conspiracy to tamper with witnesses.

Popp and Zea were charged along with co-defendants Brian Gilbert, 51, of San Jose, Calif., a former Senior Manager of Special Operations for eBay’s Global Security Team and Stephanie Stockwell, 26, of Redwood City, Calif., the former manager of eBay’s GIC. Gilbert and Stockwell are scheduled to plead guilty on Oct. 29, 2020.

Former eBay executives, James Baugh and David Harville, were charged on June 15, 2020. Phil Cooke, another former member of eBay’s Global Security Team, was also charged and is scheduled to plead guilty on Oct. 27, 2020

According to the charging documents, the victims of the cyberstalking campaign were a Natick couple who are the editor and publisher of an online newsletter that covers ecommerce companies, including eBay. Members of the executive leadership team at eBay followed the newsletter’s posts, often taking issue with its content and the anonymous comments underneath the editor’s stories.

It is alleged that in August 2019, after the newsletter published an article about litigation involving eBay, two members of eBay’s executive leadership team sent or forwarded text messages suggesting that it was time to “take down” the newsletter’s editor.

In response, Popp and Zea, and allegedly Baugh, Harville, Gilbert and Stockwell, executed a three-part harassment campaign. Among other things, several of the defendants allegedly ordered anonymous and disturbing deliveries to the victims’ home, including a preserved fetal pig, a bloody pig Halloween mask, a funeral wreath, a book on surviving the loss of a spouse, and pornography addressed to the victims but delivered to their neighbor’s homes. Zea used cash to purchase prepaid debit cards for use in the campaign and ordered insects to the victims’ home.

As part of the second phase of the campaign, Popp sent private Twitter messages and public tweets, drafted or approved by Baugh, Gilbert, or Cooke, criticizing the newsletter’s content and threatening to travel to the victims in Natick. The charging documents allege that Baugh, Gilbert, Popp and Cooke planned for these messages to become increasingly disturbing, culminating with “doxing” the victims (i.e., publishing their home address).

The third phase of the campaign allegedly involved covertly surveilling the victims in their home and community. According to the complaint, Harville and Zea registered for a software development conference to explain their trip to Boston on Aug. 15, 2019. Baugh, Harville, and Zea (and later Popp) drove to the victims’ home in Natick several times, with Harville and Baugh allegedly intending to break into the victims’ garage and install a GPS tracking device on their car. As protection in the event if they were stopped by police, Baugh and Harville allegedly carried false documents purporting to show that they were investigating the victims as “Persons of Interest” who had threatened eBay executives.

The victims spotted this surveillance, and notified the Natick Police Department. The police investigated and identified the defendants, leading to their arrest and charges.

MORE FEDERAL CRIME NEWS

Cybercrime

Lester E. Brown, Cyberstalking Conspiracy, Missouri 2023

May 8, 2023

Cybercrime

Jackson Fleming, Threat to US Naval Academy, Indiana 2025

Sep 16, 2025

Cybercrime

John Doe, DDoS Cyber Attacks, California 2022

Dec 5, 2018

Cybercrime

David Mondore, Accessing Protected Computers, New York 2021

Jun 16, 2021