Ebay must pay a $3 million fine for a bizarre harassment and intimidation campaign some of the company’s top brass waged against a Natick couple.

eBay, the international ecommerce platform that reported $2.5 billion in revenue in the third quarter of last year, admitted responsibility in federal court in Boston Thursday to six different felony charges — including stalking both by interstate travel and by electronic means — and agreed to pay the statutory maximum fine of $3 million. The company will also have to retain an independent corporate compliance monitor for three years and make major changes to its compliance program.

The seven corporate executives involved in the campaign have pleaded guilty and six of them have already been sentenced.

“As victims of despicable crimes meant to destroy our lives and our livelihood, we felt it was vital to do everything in our power to make sure such a thing never happened to anyone else,” Ina and David Steiner, the editors and owners of eCommerceBytes.com, wrote on their website following the announcement of the deferred prosecution agreement.

“After today’s announcement, we remain determined to push for answers and do whatever we possibly can to ensure that no corporation ever feels that the option exists for them to squash a person’s First Amendment rights,” the Steiners continued, adding that a civil suit against the company and executives in July 2021, which seeks monetary damages, was scheduled for trial in March.

The Steiners created their blog in 1999, as they wrote in their victim impact statement, “to help regular people and small businesses succeed in selling online — when sellers succeed, so do the platforms on which they sell.”

But their coverage infuriated some of eBay’s leadership because, the Steiner’s wrote, “we reported facts that top executives didn’t like publicly laid bare.”

In retaliation to the couple’s coverage, seven executives launched what David Steiner described to a federal judge as “a bizarre, premeditated assault on our lives” — which court filings indicates took place between Aug. 5, 2019, and Aug. 23, 2020 — “devised by the most disturbed of sociopaths.”

That included executives led by former eBay Senior Director of Safety and Security James Baugh shipping disturbing items like live spiders, cockroaches, a bloody pig Halloween mask as well as an actual fetal pig, and a book about surviving the loss of a spouse straight to the couple’s doorstep, according to court filings.

In addition to the malicious mailings, Baugh and the six others harassed the couple online through the platform then known as Twitter, traveling to Natick to surveil the Steiners and place a GPS tracking device on their car and even posting a Craigslist ad to invite others for sexual rendezvous at the couple’s home.

“eBay’s actions against us had a damaging and permanent impact on us — emotionally, psychologically, physically, reputationally, and financially — and we strongly pushed federal prosecutors for further indictments to deter corporate executives and board members from creating a culture where stalking and harassment is tolerated or encouraged,” the Steiners continued in their statement.

Baugh was sentenced in federal court in Boston in September of 2022 to four years and nine months in prison. Five more have also been sentenced that year: David Harville, former Director of Global Resiliency, was sentenced to two years in prison; Stephanie Popp, former Senior Manager of Global Intelligence, was sentenced to two years; Philip Cooke, a former Senior Manager of Security Operations, was sentenced to a year and a half in prison and another year of home confinement; Stephanie Stockwell and Veronica Zea, a former Manager of Global Intelligence and a contract intelligence analyst, respectively, each got a year of home confinement.

The seventh member of the bizarre corporate harassment team was Brian Gilbert, has pleaded guilty but whose sentencing hearing has not yet been scheduled.

The current chief executive officer of eBay, Jamie Iannone, said in a corporate statement that “The company’s conduct in 2019 was wrong and reprehensible.”

“From the moment eBay first learned of the 2019 events, eBay cooperated fully and extensively with law enforcement authorities. We continue to extend our deepest apologies to the Steiners for what they endured,” he continued. “Since these events occurred, new leaders have joined the company and eBay has strengthened its policies, procedures, controls and training. eBay remains committed to upholding high standards of conduct and ethics and to making things right with the Steiners.”

Pictures of some of the things sent to the Steiner’s home during the intimidation campaign as displayed at a press conference announcing the charges against the company in 2020. (Staff Photo By Matt Stone/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald)

Then-U.S. Attorney Andrew E. Lelling announcing federal cyberstalking charges against eBay executives at the Federal Court House on June 15, 2020 in Boston. (Staff Photo By Matt Stone/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald)