“Apple has spoken to local police about the incident and the investigation is believed to be headed by a computer crime task force led by the Santa Clara County district attorney’s office, the source said,” Sandoval and McCullagh report. “Apple’s Cupertino headquarters is in Santa Clara County, about 40 miles south of San Francisco.”
“Editors at Gizmodo.com, part of Gawker Media’s blog network, said in an article posted Monday that they paid $5,000 for what they believed to be a prototype of an impending iPhone 4G,” Sandoval and McCullagh report. “The story said the phone was accidentally left at a bar in Redwood City, Calif., last month by an Apple software engineer and found by someone who contacted Gizmodo, which had previously indicated it was willing to pay significant sums for unreleased Apple products.”
“The purpose of an investigation is to determine whether sufficient evidence exists to file criminal charges,” Sandoval and McCullagh report. “Late Friday, Bloomberg reported that it spoke to Gaby Darbyshire, Gawker’s chief operating officer, and she said that law enforcement officials had not spoken with anyone at the company.”
Sandoval and McCullagh report, “Under a California law dating back to 1872, any person who finds lost property and knows who the owner is likely to be but “appropriates such property to his own use” is guilty of theft. If the value of the property exceeds $400, more serious charges of grand theft can be filed. In addition, a second state law says that any person who knowingly receives property that has been obtained illegally can be imprisoned for up to one year.
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “TheConfuzed1” for the heads up.]
Nobody was there at the time the engineer “lost” the iPhone. Who knows what really happened? Some have said he was drunk from celebrating/bragging/personal issues/etc.. How about a paid heist? Professional pick-pocket?
I thing Gizmodo should be fined/found guilty of receiving “stolen” property as they ABSOLUTELY knew it was Apple property. If they try to deny it, I have several “Apple” phones they can buy for $5,000.
What if the thing that was lost was the design of the iPhone and it was taken by, oh let’s say HTC or Nokia or Google, and they knew where it came from and they knew who owned it and that was then used for financial gain. Would that constitute theft and therefore be a crime? Seems like that part of the iPhone was stolen also.
Time for Judge Judy to weigh in.
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Person who found the iPhone knew it’s prototype iPhone. That’s why he sold it to Gizmodo.He should called Apple, he might get a small reward, instead he was greedy. So he was violated the law. Gizmodo also knew the iPhone was prototype and decided to buy it. that’s a crime. What Gizmodo should do, just took pictures of the prototype iPhone and told the kid to return the iPhone. Both are idiots.
@shipwithsails,
Yes, if you know who owns the property and you don’t return it. and you decide to keep or sell it. It’s a crime.
@shipwithsails
It’s misdemeanor in california, you can stay in county jail for one year and you can be fined for anything you take more than $400.
It’s just free publicity for both of them.
WHY DIDN’T GRAY CALL HIS PHONE?
This whole incident would have been avoided in a few minutes if Gray would have just thought to call his own damn phone. He came back later… why didn’t he call? The ‘Finder’ had it all night. You don’t think you’d call your rare, unreleased prototype phone before you told your company that you lost it?
BULLSHIT STORY!!!!
Oh, and if you read the carefully scripted tale again, you’ll note the CSR at Apple said they’d heard about a ‘leak’. Not a lost phone, a leak.
And we all know big ships leak from the top.
Everyone is talking about the wrong that Gizmodo did. No one has mentioned the wrong that the guy did that found it. He should have just given it to the bar owner as a lost and found since the kids went back to the bar looking for it. The person that found it saw dollar signs. He was a greedy opportunist. He is the one that should serve time and Gizmodo will pay a fine for purchasing/renting/borrowing (it’s all semantics) stolen property.
Nail Gizmodo to the wall!
So the phone was found in California, then transported to Gizmodo’s offices in New York, correct? If so, wouldn’t this entail federal charges for transporting stolen goods across state lines?
@ ChrissyOne,
This incident appears to have you highly agitated. I suggest stepping away from the Mac and drinking beer. Lots and lots of beer.
@Glass Hollow – Great idea.
“Dear Mr Jobs, I have found what appears to be a prototype, next gen iPhone and I would like to return it ASAP. Can this be arranged?”
Jobs reply: “Yep”
I think this puts an end to speculation this is a carefully crafted PR stunt by Apple, if it’s true they’ve spoken to the police. You do *not* involve the police in a clandestine PR campaign after-the-fact, especially to the point where they task resources to investigate, unless it’s a legitimate loss/theft.
He did, and also was constantly contacting the owner of the bar this is documented and even reported on all the news networks try a search… type, type click, click.
zunetang aka chrissyOne, you try so hard don’t you, But you just stick out like a puss filled boil, it doesn’t work but its funny sonny.
Love and kisses,
Mama
Dear Steve:
I wonder whether Apple lost some cool device lately. I think I’ve found it.
The thing is insanely great but ugly that I doubted to related to Apple. Anyway, if it belongs to Apple, I’ll be glad to deliver it back with one only condition: I want to give it to you in person to shake my favorite company CEO’s hand.
Greetings.
something cool that belongs to your company.
@mossman
Ordinarily you would be correct. But, this is Master Jobs at work and all conventional ways of doing things – even involving law enforcement – don’t matter to him. He’s invincible, the world needs him, he’s changed everybody’s life more than a few times, is in the process of doing it some more and no law will stop him. So, your (yes, correct spelling now) wrong.
If you doubt me, check C1’s post – she agrees that all this is carefully planned to keep the pub going and going – Steve style!
@ @chrissyOne
Number 1 – use your own name.
Number 2 – please provide links to this evidence.
“Constantly”. No, I read that he came back and was upset they didn’t have the phone. Where did you read ‘constantly’?
So please, provide links to All The News Networks and show me what you’re talking about. I don’t trust word of mouth and second hand bs.
@Fat Basterd
No, they can use the extradition treaties law between Ca and NY
The person that found it could have just taken a butt load of puctures and sold them to gizmodo. Then email steve and ask him to come get it.
That’s a Win/win in my opinion
@ Sir Gill Bates
Speaking of beer… you’re asking me to believe that a 27 year old computer geek that’s worked for at least 2 huge companies would honestly type on this Twitter that he “underestimated how good German beer is”? By the time I was 21 I’d consumed many beers from all over the world.
But you believe that a guy goes to a bar he’s never been to, on his birthday, alone, Tweets about this Strange New Beer (Germany…? What? They make beer?!?!), and gets drunk enough to misplace the MOST IMPORTANT DEVICE OF HIS CAREER.
No I’ve seen no report that he called the phone or that the ‘Finder’ (the Weakest Link in the myth) never answered it?
Isn’t that what you’d do? If you lost Steve’s phone, wouldn’t you just freaking call it?
An honest person wouldn’t have taken a phone in a bar that wasn’t theirs. They should have turned it in to the bartender there and then. There was deliberate intent to take the phone.
ChrissyOne:
In my book, a geek is a geek, you know? Not exactly the most desirable social attribute…kind o like socially inept/misfit?..
Sheltered…?