iPhone 4 "Finders" Face Charges

[Andy Chalk]

iPhone 4 "Finders" Face Charges

More than a year after it happened, the two men who found a mislaid iPhone 4 and sold it to Gizmodo have been formally charged.

There was quite a kerfuffle in early 2010 over the appearance of an iPhone 4 prototype preview [http://gizmodo.com/5520164/this-is-apples-next-iphone] on the tech blog Gizmodo. The unit was apparently left in a bar by an Apple engineer, where it was discovered by Brian Hogan and Sage Wallower, an enterprising duo who promptly began shopping it around.

Enter Gizmodo, which paid a cool $5000 for the thing, posted a photo-laden preview and unleashed a firestorm of controversy over the ethics of paying for what may or may not have been stolen property. Police raided the home of Jason Chen, the Gizmodo editor who wrote the preview, seizing four computers and two servers, but he and the site have now officially been cleared [http://gizmodo.com/5829554/gizmodo-officially-not-being-charged-in-iphone-4-case] of any wrongdoing.

Hogan and Wallower, however, are not so lucky. Hogan has been charged with one misdemeanor count of misappropriation of lost property, while Wallower is facing one misdemeanor charge of misappropriation of lost property and one of possession of stolen property. The pair will be arraigned later this month.

"Although we do not believe that charges of any kind should have been filed, Brian fully accepts responsibility for his actions," Hogan's lawyer, Jeffrey Bornstein of K&L Gates said in a statement.

All I know about the U.S. justice system I learned from Mike and Lenny, so I have to ask: isn't taking more than a year to file charges, plus a statement from both the D.A.'s office and the defendant's lawyer, a bit much for a couple of misdemeanors? It seems like an awful lot of time and effort to sink into prosecuting to what is essentially a failure to turn something in to the Lost & Found.

Source: The Am Law Daily [http://amlawdaily.typepad.com/amlawdaily/2011/08/klgates.html]


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[Gerhardt]

Does seem a bit over the top for one phone, then again with Apple being the huge power-house company that it is (I believe they were the highest price company on the stock market last week for a couple hours) I can see how a prototype 'wandering off' could be bad with the whole investor-money-talky-suit-peoples.

The question that I have is... how the hell did these two even get it to begin with?
What engineer says "Whelp... it's Friday, guess I'll take this expensive piece of secret equipment to a public place where I can consume large amounts of alcohol.... Nothing bad could possibly happen."

 

[Rawne1980]

Shouldn't they just slap the drunken tit that lost it in the first place.

 

[drkchmst]

Stolen property? Since when is a drunk schmuck losing his phone and someone else picking it up considered stealing? It may not be his to give away, but did we let Ben Franklin off the leash when he was drunk? No and neither should apple have with this guy.

 

[Baresark]

The fact is, it's illegal to immediately turn around and sell a lost item. There are rules regarding the etiquette involved. First you must seek out the owner, if it's an item of value you must do things like post in the newspaper for a certain amount of time.

I think it's shitty that Apple is doing this, but if it were my phone that someone did that too, I would be really really pissed off, TBH. I would at least demand the money they received for my item.

 

[mjc0961]

And my respect for Apple drops even further. I remember this story. The person who found it put forth a lot of effort to get in touch with Apple to return the phone, but Apple blew them off [http://gizmodo.com/5520438/how-apple-lost-the-next-iphone]. And even if they hadn't, it hardly counts as stolen property anyway. In order for it to be stolen, you have to steal it. The guy who had it left it at a bar and someone found it, which is not stealing, especially since again, the person who ended up with it tried to return it!

 

[Ne1butme]

hmm, thought this article was going to be about those nice law abiding chaps who 'found' all those boxed Iphones in London.

 

[robert01]

Technically you have to claim the item as lost and if no claims it in a certain amount of time it than legally becomes your property. At least that is how it works up here in Canada.