First, a general rule of thumb: If you get angry at eBay, it’s best not send threatening messages to its executives. This rule, ignored by former eBay apostle Florin Horicianu after feeling he was ripped off by the company, will keep you out of prison and not banned from eBay.
A U.S. District Court judge sentenced Horicianu, a naturalized Romanian-American and Ridgewood, N.Y. resident, to a total term of ten months, including five months in prison and five months of electronic monitoring for “transmitting threatening interstate communications” to eBay Chief Executive Meg Whitman and founder and chairman Pierre Omidyar.
According to court documents, the statements that got Horicianu in the most hot water was, “I will haunt and hurt you and your family,” and that he would locate them anywhere.
The 34-year-old computer programmer was incensed after participating in eBay’s affiliate program that paid members up to $45 per eBay recruits. Horicianu said he spent thousands of dollars traveling to Romania to sign up his Romanian countrymen.
He also said that eBay had refused to pay him the $7,200 the company owed him for his efforts after they began to doubt the flood of new accounts being opened up out of Romanian Internet cafes.
In a plea agreement, Horicianu pleaded guilty to the charges in May of last year. The sentencing, to begin in June, was handed down by U.S. District Judge James Ware in San Jose, California, who also imposed a number of special restrictions during three months of supervised release.
Among them, the defendant shall:
(1) have no contact with eBay or any individuals affiliated with or employed by eBay, including but not limited to, personal contact; telephone, mail, or electronic mail contact; or any other written form of communication; and including any threatening, harassing, annoying, or intimidating conduct or further demands for money by the defendant directed to eBay and its employees or other individuals affiliated with eBay;
(2) stay at least five hundred (500) yards away from any function involving eBay, and any person affiliated with eBay;
(3) refrain from accessing, via a computer, any material that relates to the activity in which he was engaged in committing the offense, namely www.eBay.com;
(4) not possess any firearms;
(5) participate in mental health treatment;
(6) not travel to the Northern District of California or the District of Nevada south of Highway 50 without prior permission of the probation officer;
(7) consent to periodic unannounced examinations of his computer equipment.
The prosecution is the result of a joint investigation by the U.S. Secret Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. According to Yahoo News, eBay declined to comment.
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