“Two men pleaded no contest [yesterday] to theft of lost property in a case involving last year’s iPhone 4 prototype, which Apple claimed was so valuable that a price could not be placed on it,” Greg Sandoval and Declan McCullagh report for CNET. “A no-contest plea is effectively the same as pleading guilty. It allows the court to find the defendant guilty of a crime and results in a criminal conviction. The primary difference is that the admission of guilt can’t be used in a civil lawsuit against Hogan and Wallower, which Apple could choose to pursue.”
The men, who were accused of selling the device to gadget blog Gizmodo last year, were sentenced to one year of probation, 40 hours of public service, and a requirement that each pay $250 in restitution to Apple, San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe told CNET,” Sandoval and McCullagh report.
Brian Hogan, the man who allegedly found the prototype in a bar, and Sage Wallower, who allegedly helped Hogan shop the device around to technology sites, were charged with misdemeanor theft in early August,” Sandoval and McCullagh report. “They allegedly obtained the prototype iPhone 4 after Robert Gray Powell, an Apple computer engineer who was 28 years old at the time, left it in a German beer garden in Redwood City, Calif., about half an hour’s drive from Apple’s Cupertino headquarters.”
Read more in the full article here.
What’s Gray Powell’s punishment then? Spit shine Tim Cook’s shoes for the rest of his natural life or when Apple releases a 4″ iPhone 5, whichever is sooner?
Sweet! $76,000,000,500 an counting.
What about the money they got from selling the phone. They should have had to forgot that to the court.
That already went to their lawyers.
Total travesty of justice. Several ppl were guilty of felonies. This joke of a consequence will enable others to think “Finders Keepers” instead of respecting somebody else’s property and the law.
Let me fix that
Robert Gray Powell, A FORMER Apple computer engineer who was 28 years old at the time, left it in a German beer garden…
There as Steve would say that is better.
note
iCloud is up.
Letme correct that,
I have no idea if Robert Gray Powell, is still an Apple Engineer.
I would have fired anyone who lost a high tech prototype in a ‘bar’.
But Steve was such a nice guy he may have understood and kept him on the Apple staff anyway where he still may be today.
Does any body really know?
All we really know is that the scumbag Gizmodo freaks got off without so much as even a slap on the hand……
Finders and keepers of stolen property get a hand slap, buyers of known stolen property get off with zero consequences.
I would have kept Gray, but buried him in a thankless task as his punishment.
Actually, it was reported that nothing happened to Apple’s engineer; he still has the job.
Given as how they pleaded ‘no contest,’ I don’t think you have to call them ‘suspects’ anymore. You can call them ‘thieves,’ which is what they admitted to being.
Who were the hippies who named their ‘tard son “Sage Wallflower”?
$250? Yea, that should even things out.
It’s unfortunate that Gizmodo was let off the hook, (paycheck journalism isn’t real journalism and shouldn’t be treated as such) but as least Apple is getting paid back their full damaged amount. 😐
Gizmodo avoided theft charges by lawyering up behind assertions of “Freedom of the Press” and by equating their involvement with “Whistle-blowing”, citing historical events like Watergate which under the strict interpretation of law were also thefts of classified material. Fighting this type of legal battle would be too negative for Apple’s PR department so they did the usual …. went after a couple blue collar boys who could not afford a legal battle.