Ex-police captain convicted in eBay harassment campaign involving spiders, roaches, fetal pig avoids prison due to cancer diagnosis

David and Ira Steiner appear for a ’60 Minutes’ interview in 2023 (60 Minutes/YouTube).

The last of seven former eBay employees who were in involved in a cyberstalking campaign that targeted a Massachusetts couple with disturbing threats and menacing packages containing things like a bloody pig Halloween mask, a book on surviving the death of a spouse as well as live cockroaches and spiders, has been sentenced to time served , and he will not spend any more time behind bars in light of what legal filings describe as a terminal cancer diagnosis.

Prosecutors confirmed to Law&Crime via email Monday that Brian Gilbert, 56, spent only one day in jail prior to his sentencing hearing last week — this was from the time between his arrest and his release with conditions.

Gilbert, as Law&Crime previously reported, was the senior manager of special operations for eBay’s Global Security team. The Justice Department announced that he was sentenced to time served and must also pay a $20,000 fine and not make any contact with his victims.

Gilbert pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit cyberstalking and conspiracy to tamper with witnesses. Prosecutors sought a sentence of time served since Gilbert is suffering terminal cancer, according to a sentencing memorandum filed on July 12 — although they implied that they weren’t especially happy about it.

“There is clearly no satisfactory outcome in this case,” prosecutors said in the memo, noting that Gilbert and his co-defendants “engaged in an extreme and unprecedented campaign to harass a pair of journalists” and “used decades of police training and experience” to try and throw investigators off the case.

“While prison is the appropriate punishment for the defendant’s crime, a prison sentence would not be appropriate given the defendant’s current prognosis,” the memo added.

The San Jose, California , resident was the last of seven former members of eBay’s security team charged in the cyberstalking campaign of David and Ina Steiner of Natick, Massachusetts . The group also sent the couple a funeral wreath, a preserved fetal pig and more. The defendants also subjected the couple to doxxing , or the exposure of their private information online including their home address, and eventually, the defendants coordinated a break-in of the Steiner’s garage where a GPS tracking device was installed on their car, as Law&Crime reported .

Gilbert, a former Santa Clara police captain, was instructed by the group to “approach the victims with an offer to help stop the harassment that the defendants were secretly causing, in an effort to promote good will towards eBay,” federal prosecutors said.

The couple says they were targeted because of a story Ina Steiner wrote through their online trade publication EcommerceBytes in 2019. The story was about a lawsuit eBay had filed arguing that Amazon was poaching its sellers.

This January, eBay was forced to pay $3 million to resolve charges related to the cyberstalking and harassment campaign orchestrated by its employees. The leader of the harassment campaign, according to prosecutors, was eBay’s former senior director of safety and security Jim Baugh . Baugh was sentenced to 57 months in prison in 2022.

A bloody pig Halloween mask and a book on surviving the loss of a spouse sent to a Massachusetts couple’s home (WCVB/YouTube).

In addition to Baugh and Gilbert, David Harville , the former Director of Global Resiliency, was sentenced to 24 months in prison in September 2022; Stephanie Popp , former Senior Manager of Global Intelligence, was sentenced to 12 months in prison in October 2022; Philip Cooke , a former Senior Manager of Security Operations, was sentenced to 18 months in prison and 12 months of home confinement in July 2021; Stephanie Stockwell , a former Manager of Global Intelligence, was sentenced to one year in home confinement in October 2022; and Veronica Zea , a contract intelligence analyst, was sentenced to one year in home confinement in November 2022.

“Today’s sentencing brings an end to our prosecution of eBay’s horrific conduct. The company’s culture resulted in seven eBay employees and contractors inflicting an unspeakable campaign of harassment and intimidation against the victims in this case, all to silence their reporting and protect the eBay brand,” acting U.S. attorney Joshua Levy said on July 18.

Jodi Cohen, the FBI special agent leading the agency’s Boston division said in a statement after Gilbert’s sentencing:

No sentence can ever make up for the devastating and irreversible impact Brian Gilbert’s actions had on the victims in this case. As a former law enforcement officer, Mr. Gilbert should have stepped in and stopped this unprecedented, relentless, and over-the-top harassment campaign that he and others at eBay orchestrated to try and protect their company’s reputation. Anyone who thinks they can terrorize innocent people, obstruct investigations, and get away with it can expect to be brought to justice to face similar consequences.

Law&Crime’s Matt Naham contributed to this report.

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