eBay will pay $3 million to resolve criminal charges stemming from several of its former employees sending live spiders, cockroaches and a fetal pig to a Massachusetts couple who wrote a newsletter critical of the company in 2019, officials said Thursday.
The online auction giant was charged criminally with two counts of stalking through interstate travel, two counts of stalking through electronic communications services, witness tampering and obstruction of justice, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts.
As part of a deferred prosecution agreement, eBay has agreed to pay the penalty, which is the maximum fine allowed by law for the six felonies, prosecutors said.
The company must also retain an independent corporate compliance monitor for three years and will have to make changes to its compliance program, according to federal authorities.
“Today’s settlement holds e-Bay criminally and financially responsible for emotionally, psychologically, and physically terrorizing the publishers of an online newsletter out of fear that bad publicity would adversely impact their Fortune 500 company,” said Jodi Cohen, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston Division.
eBay put the victims through “pure hell,” Joshua S. Levy, acting U.S. attorney for the District of Massachusetts, said in the statement.
The company “engaged in absolutely horrific, criminal conduct. The company’s employees and contractors involved in this campaign put the victims through pure hell, in a petrifying campaign aimed at silencing their reporting and protecting the eBay brand,” Levy said.
In a statement posted on its website Thursday, eBay said it’s taking “responsibility for the misconduct of its former employees.”
“The company’s conduct in 2019 was wrong and reprehensible,” said eBay CEO Jamie Iannone. “From the moment eBay first learned of the 2019 events, eBay cooperated fully and extensively with law enforcement…
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