Lost iPhone 4 Prototype Finders Sentenced to Probation

[MacRumors]

Late yesterday, CNET reported that Brian Hogan and Sage Wallower, the two men involved in finding a lost iPhone 4 prototype in a Redwood City, California bar last year and selling it to Gizmodo, have pleaded no contest to the theft charges that had been brought against them. The two men were each sentenced to one year of probation and 40 hours of community service, and were required to pay $250 in restitution to Apple.

"We asked for some jail time," [Steve] Wagstaffe, the district attorney, said today. "The judge considered that Wallower had served in the armed forces and Hogan was enrolled in San Jose State, and neither had any criminal record, and decided that jail time wasn't required. Someone from my office called Apple's general counsel. This is a fairly routine theft case. This was a couple of youthful people who should have known better."

In a follow-up report relating an interview with Wagstaffe, CNET shares that Gizmodo was ultimately cleared of any charges related to the case because of a lack of evidence. Wagstaffe did, however, have some harsh words for the behavior of Gizmodo's staff.

Wagstaffe said, however, that his office's review of the computers seized from [Gizmodo editor Jason] 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."

The district attorney's office had specifically looked for evidence of Gizmodo's participation in theft leading to possession of stolen property, as well as potential extortion, but did not find sufficient evidence to support either charge.

Article Link: Lost iPhone 4 Prototype Finders Sentenced to Probation

 

[Maximillian]

Gizmodo kinda reads like a bunch of 15 year olds, so I'm not really that surprised. I mean, I still go there every day, but I'm started to ask myself 'why?'

 

[wordoflife]

If I ever find a prototype iPhone, I sure as hell won't be getting near it.

 

[toddybody]

This is ridiculous. Jail time? Do we know the FACTS of all this? Has it been PROVEN in court that these men acquired the prototype through illegal means? For heavens sake, Apple "lost" a 2nd prototype at a bar...so I think the quick answer that they (or someone they dealt with) "stole" the prototype is horribly indefensible. I cant believe the DA would suggest jail time for this, in light of the truly horrible offenses that people commit daily without equal punishment.

A SWAT raid on the man's house, and now this? I would sue the hell out of Apple and the police force for this disgusting amount of harassment. These men now have criminal records.

 

[MCP-511]

Typically prototypes cost way more than a normal production unit. I'm not surprised if charges are pending.

 

[cvaldes]

If I ever find a prototype iPhone, I sure as hell won't be getting near it.

There's nothing wrong with finding lost property.

The problem is when you know who it belongs to and you don't give it back to them yet use it for your own personal reasons. That's illegal in the State of California. It's not "finders keepers, losers weepers" here.

Whether or not it's a prototype device or an actual production unit is essentially irrelevant.

I've found wallets, ID cards, etc. The easiest thing to do is to hand it to the nearest police officer ("you deal with it") and not try to figure out how to get it back to the original owner.

Gizmodo deserves a black eye for this. Both Chen and Lam were indeed juvenile pricks about the whole episode (Lam sheepishly admitted it after Steve's death). Nick Denton continues to be one of the most insufferable bastards in all of online media. A pox on their houses.

Gizmodo will never ever be invited to another Apple media event; Chen guaranteed that. He screwed himself as well as Gawker Media. I completely applaud the latter consequence.

 

[OriginalMacRat]

This is ridiculous. Jail time? Do we know the FACTS of all this? Has it been PROVEN in court that these men acquired the prototype through illegal means?

They sure didn't do the honest thing and turn it into the manager of the bar.

 

[cshearer]

This is ridiculous. Jail time? Do we know the FACTS of all this? Has it been PROVEN in court that these men acquired the prototype through illegal means? For heavens sake, Apple "lost" a 2nd prototype at a bar...so I think the quick answer that they (or someone they dealt with) "stole" the prototype is horribly indefensible. I cant believe the DA would suggest jail time for this, in light of the truly horrible offenses that people commit daily without equal punishment.

A SWAT raid on the man's house, and now this? I would sue the hell out of Apple and the police force for this disgusting amount of harassment. These men now have criminal records.

Junk thought like this is a plague in our society.

As many have said in this thread, what they did was criminal, and no matter how large or small, you will get punished if caught and found guilty.

A few months ago I got fined and ticketed for speeding. I was going 70mph in a 55mph zone.

Is this a dangerous speed? No, conditions were ideal.

Was I breaking Pennsylvania's road laws? Yes.

Did I know that I could potentially be fined and possibly have points applied to my license for doing this? Of course.

Did I bitch about it? Of course.

Did I try to peg the blame on someone else or blame our supposedly backwards and corrupt criminal justice system and did my friends suggest I "sue the hell out of" the HPD for the trauma of flashing lights in my eyes? Of course not, because I use the gray lump of matter in my head known as my brain.

 

[Skyjacker07]

You could call them feeble, or half-minded but to a certain extent he is right, I mean there are a lot of intelligent people here including your self, if you've never had a run in with the law you would understand, I've been harassed because I had a car that looked like a drug dealers car, drug dogs, thrown around, the whole nine yards, I've never touched drugs in my life, and if you've picked something up, regardless of intent and someone busts into your house you would call that half minded, have you ever read, if not look it up where thieves have sued a person because they got hurt breaking into their house. I know my little stories jump around, the point he was trying to make wasn't that the guys didn't deserve to get in trouble, but how the law in general goes over board in certain situations.

 

[Skyjacker07]

"Trauma for flashing lights" lmao, your right there, but say they went overboard, example your speeding ticket, you got more than just the ticket, maybe tazed, or jail time for what you think is a minor infraction?

 

[Scenicroadways]

There's that ugly mug again

 

[cshearer]

You could call them feeble, or half-minded but to a certain extent he is right, I mean there are a lot of intelligent people here including your self, if you've never had a run in with the law you would understand, I've been harassed because I had a car that looked like a drug dealers car, drug dogs, thrown around, the whole nine yards, I've never touched drugs in my life, and if you've picked something up, regardless of intent and someone busts into your house you would call that half minded, have you ever read, if not look it up where thieves have sued a person because they got hurt breaking into their house. I know my little stories jump around, the point he was trying to make wasn't that the guys didn't deserve to get in trouble, but how the law in general goes over board in certain situations.

Oh I do agree that law enforcement goes extremely overboard at times. One that pops into mind most recently are the Occupy Wall Street protests. However, the iPhone 5 scandal has yet to be substantiated (to my knowledge), and from what I've read seems like nothing more than a half baked conspiracy theory. Therefore, I found it laudable that the poster was going on a rant about something that probably didn't happen. One thing we can't do though is extrapolate one bad cop to cover all cops. That's a mistake I made during high school, but now that I'm in college, I see things a bit differently. Yes there are bad apples, but a majority of cops are out to protect us.

"Trauma for flashing lights" lmao, your right there, but say they went overboard, example your speeding ticket, you got more than just the ticket, maybe tazed, or jail time for what you think is a minor infraction?

Well of course that'd be ridiculous, but it doesn't happen as often as the media might paint it. I love driving fast sometimes, so I take a risk in doing that. However, in the case of the lost iPhone 4 prototype, I don't think the courts were overstepping any boundaries. They knew what they were doing, and they were old enough to understand the consequences. I know it's hard for some on here to sympathize for Apple when it comes to breaking the next big rumor or prototype leak, but we have to draw the line somewhere. The people behind these devices are very proud of them, and want to surprise us. Bottom line though, they stole and broke California law. There's not really a debate to be had here is what I'm trying to get at.

 

[aleksoctop]

honestly, no surprises here. I used to read Gizmodo daily. And over time the way they jump to conclusions and keep writing judgmental skiddish articles they don't even bother spell-checking, really got me to stop reading Gizmodo altogether. I wouldn't even go out to lunch with any of their editors, because most of them seem like total jerks from the way they write. Decline of journalism is at hand.

 

[cshearer]

Decline of journalism is at hand.

Yes, this.

 

[smallnshort247]

As far as I know, Steve Jobs and Apple asked them for the phone back right after Apple realized they had it. It would of probably been on of those no harm no foul type cases but the Gizmodo guys dished out on their opportunity and now they're dealing with the consequences.

 

[anberlinairlift]

This is ridiculous. Jail time? Do we know the FACTS of all this? Has it been PROVEN in court that these men acquired the prototype through illegal means? For heavens sake, Apple "lost" a 2nd prototype at a bar...so I think the quick answer that they (or someone they dealt with) "stole" the prototype is horribly indefensible. I cant believe the DA would suggest jail time for this, in light of the truly horrible offenses that people commit daily without equal punishment.

A SWAT raid on the man's house, and now this? I would sue the hell out of Apple and the police force for this disgusting amount of harassment. These men now have criminal records.

They found property that wasn't theirs and sold it to someone else, as if it was theirs to sell in the first place. You don't find anything wrong with that? That seems completely legitimate to you?

Too bad "finders keepers!" didn't hold up for them in court.

 

[notjustjay]

honestly, no surprises here. I used to read Gizmodo daily. And over time the way they jump to conclusions and keep writing judgmental skiddish articles they don't even bother spell-checking, really got me to stop reading Gizmodo altogether. I wouldn't even go out to lunch with any of their editors, because most of them seem like total jerks from the way they write. Decline of journalism is at hand.

I lost all respect for Gizmodo after that "TV-B-Gone" prank they pulled at CES. Completely and utterly unprofessional behaviour. I'm glad they are reaping what they sow.

 

[TheGenerous]

I'm glad Gizmodo will be assaulted by raping-monkeys

 

[theBB]

This is ridiculous. Jail time? Do we know the FACTS of all this? Has it been PROVEN in court that these men acquired the prototype through illegal means?

I don't know about "we", but "you" apparently don't know about the facts, I mean FACTS. They found property that did not belong to them, sold it to somebody else at a much higher price than a regular phone indicating that they knew what they were doing and when the police started closing in on them, they quickly dumped some evidence, such as a flash drive. When the cops caught up to them, they confessed and showed the cops where they dumped the materials. Then a judge, the prosecutors and the rest of the court system got involved. What else do you want?

 

[polkunus]

You could call them feeble, or half-minded but to a certain extent he is right, I mean there are a lot of intelligent people here including your self, if you've never had a run in with the law you would understand, I've been harassed because I had a car that looked like a drug dealers car, drug dogs, thrown around, the whole nine yards, I've never touched drugs in my life, and if you've picked something up, regardless of intent and someone busts into your house you would call that half minded, have you ever read, if not look it up where thieves have sued a person because they got hurt breaking into their house. I know my little stories jump around, the point he was trying to make wasn't that the guys didn't deserve to get in trouble, but how the law in general goes over board in certain situations.

 

[Stridder44]

Not surprised at all. Gizmodo is a crap "news" site and always has been. They have always acted like 15 year olds even before any of this Apple stuff.

 

[ZipZap]

Sentence was too harsh. Just the cost to defend was more than adequate punishment.

Asking for jail time was simply over the top.

Our legal system at its finest. More tax dollars now being spent to support probation.

Stupid.

 

[Žalgiris]

Sentence was too harsh. Just the cost to defend was more than adequate punishment.

Asking for jail time was simply over the top.

Our legal system at its finest. More tax dollars now being spent to support probation.

Stupid.

Let it slide, right? or better just let them pay whatever it would have cost to defend and let them continue doing stuff like this?

Now they have a record and if they attempt anything like this in that year they will be someones sweethearts. I think all is fair here.

 

[fredoviola]

CES prank...

Wow, I hadn't heard about the TV-Be-Gone prank at CES. That's really ******** up! These guys at Gizmodo have scored so many negative Karma points by now!

 

[Themaeds]

The attorney representing these fellas made one critical error. All the had to do was cite the famous saying, "Finders Keepers, losers weepers"