“The great iPhone prototype caper of 2010 has finally ended, with the two men accused of shopping the device to gadget blogs sentenced to probation yesterday,” Greg Sandoval and Declan McCullagh report for CNET.
See: iPhone theft suspects get probation, public service, each pay have to pay Apple $250 in restitution – October 12, 2011
“Last year’s investigation began with a raid on Gizmodo editor Jason Chen’s Fremont, Calif., home, followed by a painstaking examination of Chen’s electronic files. Investigators suggested at the time that Chen could face criminal charges, and he soon hired a criminal defense attorney,” Sandoval and McCullagh report. “But San Mateo County District Attorney Steven Wagstaffe told CNET yesterday that there was not enough evidence to indict Chen or anyone else affiliated with Gizmodo.”
Sandoval and McCullagh report, “Wagstaffe said, however, that his office’s review of the computers seized from Chen’s home showed the correspondence between Gizmodo editors was ‘juvenile.’ ‘It was obvious that they were angry with the company about not being invited to some press conference or some big Apple event. We expected to see a certain amount of professionalism — this is like 15-year-old children talking,’ Wagstaffe said. ‘There was so much animosity, and they were very critical of Apple. They talked about having Apple right where they wanted them and they were really going to show them.'”
Sandoval and McCullagh report, “‘If I were prosecuting, I’d go after [any blogger who bought the phone] vigorously,’ Michael Cardoza, a prominent San Francisco defense attorney and former prosecutor, said last year. ‘I’d fight them tooth and nail to see that they wouldn’t get protection under the shield law. I’d play hardball in this case. They didn’t find the phone as part of their reporting but instead bought property that they knew or should have known wasn’t the property of the seller.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Like slimy worms, off the hook they slither.
Related articles:
Former Gizmodo editor Brian Lam apologizes for iPhone 4 prototype imbroglio – October 6, 2011
Apple may pursue a civil suit against Gawker Media over iPhone 4 prototype leak – August 22, 2011
Gizmodo gets off the hook in prototype iPhone 4 imbroglio; men who sold it charged – August 10, 2011