Probably not a rational decision. I bet the guy just felt insulted and disrespected by the articles and decided to escalate the situation in an attempt to rectify that.
What baffles me is how many high-level people were sufficiently involved to face criminal charges. A manager, two senior managers, a director, and a senior director? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBay_stalking_scandal#Charges_...) I expect high-level execs to be amoral bastards, but I would not have expected quite so many to be this suicidally stupid all at the same time.
I'm sure this varies from company to company, but it's at least been my experience that a lot corporate executives see their jobs as vehicles for their egos. I'm not sure how to make this sound less trite, because the reality of the situation feels pretty shocking and alien to me. Why would anyone be _proud_ of having some status at some company? In my relatively short experience, it's quite common.
I feel like in a lot of cases there's this weird understanding that if you're doing something for work it doesn't matter if it's illegal (or just amoral), you personally will not be subject to any consequences.
