Writing that a key element of the case was “pure speculation” by prosecutors and unsupported by evidence, a judge in California on Tuesday dismissed bribery charges against Apple’s security chief, Thomas Moyer, in a gun permit case.
Prosecutors alleged that Moyer had offered to donate iPads to the Sheriff’s Office after a 2019 meeting in exchange for help getting concealed-weapons permits for the company’s executive protection team. It is illegal to carry a concealed weapon without a permit in California, and county sheriffs have wide discretion over whether to grant them.
Judge Eric S. Geffon of the Superior Court of Santa Clara County found on Tuesday that Moyer had been in talks with the Sheriff’s Office about permits for more than a year by the time of the 2019 meeting. By then, Geffon wrote, the evidence suggests Moyer believed the permits were already approved and would be issued soon.
Geffon said prosecutors erred in alleging that Moyer had any corrupt intent in offering to donate the iPads. “This argument is pure speculation, and is not supported by the evidence presented to the grand jury,” Geffon wrote.
Moreover, Geffon wrote that Moyer’s offer to donate the iPads to the Sheriff’s Office, rather than any specific officer, and the fact that Moyer followed all of Apple’s internal rules for requesting a donation, showed a lack of corrupt intent.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote last November:
Guess carrying a green squirt gun didn’t cut it for Apple’s head of Global Security. Likely he thinks that pretending things don’t exist like a three-year-old doesn’t actually erase them from reality.
Wherever the laws stipulate that “permits” are required, the potential for corruption by the permit issuers is increased. When the issuer is “the government,” it creates an impedance to reporting abusers for fear of retaliation. To whom do you report attempted bribery when it’s the police doing the extorting and you have no idea how far the corruption goes with “the government?”
…Moyer and others, who were simply trying to achieve California “permits” just to be able to perform their jobs are largely the victims here, not the criminals.