Police Seize Gizmodo Editor's Computers and Other Property Related to Lost Next-Generation iPhone

[quagmire]

Gray was fricken drunk and left the iPhone there. No one took it from him. He was being an ass hole, and left the iPhone there. I find phones in the street sometimes. If I want to keeps it, then I will. The person should make sure their "valuable stuff" is well protected. Its cool though. I found one motorola crap phpone, and they dude was so happy when I gave I called his home number. A lady gave me $25.00 for returning her BlackBerry. I don't expect $$$ in return, just people that would do the same for me.

How was he being an ******* for leaving the phone there by mistake? Did he go, " I am going to leave this prototype device here so when the finder takes it I am going to press charges for stealing against him" ?

I hope you keeping lost property comes to teach you a lesson in what is legal and what is not. Finders keepers doesn't apply in the real world.

Him being drunk doesn't effect the possible charges against Gizmodo. It makes him irresponsible, but it doesn't excuse Giz for buying lost/stolen property.

I am going to talk to my dad tonight since he is a lawyer( that is able to practice in the US unlike Gawker's ) and see what his thoughts are on this.

 

[cmaier]

In a sense, I support you. Wasting tax dollars on something this childish is beyond stupidity on Apple's part.

As much as Microsoft likes to talk about the "Apple tax," we really don't pay one. Hence Apple can't be wasting anyone's tax dollars.

 

[jav6454]

1) you probably just slandered the guy. You have no proof he was drunk. You don't know that no one took the phone from him. You don't know that he was being an *******.

2) you admit that you are a thief ("if i want to keeps it, then i will") but you want people to return your own lost property ("people that would do the same for me."). That says enough about your ethics that people now know what kind of guy you are, and how much your analysis of the ethics is worth.

Pick and choose much? Reread his entire thing...

As much as Microsoft likes to talk about the "Apple tax," we really don't pay one. Hence Apple can't be wasting anyone's tax dollars.

1. True
2. Yes they are.... paying for the police comes right out of our taxes. All of that for a phone that the competition never got, and the OS was never compromised. Also, for something they can't fully prove as stolen.

 

[wildmac]

If the guy had given Gizmodo the phone, it might be a bit different. If Gizmodo hadn't taken it apart, it might be a bit more different.

But since they paid (a lot) for the phone, and then dismantled it, they have whatever is coming to them.

If the original guy was so innocent, he wouldn't have charged $5000 for it, and he wouldn't have known that it could be a prototype.

 

[JediZenMaster]

I Bet if this happened to google. People would be glad of the legal action against the culprit. Hypocrite's

 

[farmboy]

sorry but i have to disagree here, i'm all for freedom of speech and journalism as our entire country was founded on the constitution. if you like closed news and journalism you may want to check china out. i hear they love stuff like that. but as long as i'm living in the united states, i am going to support our legal system and freedoms. both of which were made a mockery by this entire ordeal. the police neither had a right to seize a journalists property or preform a night search, yet they did both, everything they took is now non-admissable in court because the police violated their own warrant. the most that will result from this is an apology letter to the editor.

Katie: You had to rag on a guy for using "your" instead of "you're", so I feel just a tiny bit compelled to point out: a whole bunch of lower case "i", instead of capitalized personal pronoun "I" (it appears you don't know how to use the shift key); "preform" instead of "perform", and "non-admissable" instead of inadmissible. Katie...meet Karma. Karma...meet Katie.
And your should be banned for urging someone to commit suicide. Not cool even in a heated debate.

 

[iDisk]

Let This Be A Lesson To Those Who Cross Apple.

Don't Mess With A Company You Cant Match.

 

[mattster16]

They don't even know whether it was lost or stolen, so how do they have the right to take computers and break into the poor guy's house? Couldn't they have warned him before or something?

1. Lost and stolen are not mutually exclusive! - the phone could be lost and then if someone finds it and doesn't make an effort to return the phone to the owner it is then considered stolen. If the finder sells the phone knowing it isn't theirs it is most certainly considered stolen property.

2. THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT THE POLICE ARE INVESTIGATING! Whether Gizmodo knew at the time of purchase that the phone was stolen. (which they most certainly did since the finder of the phone was not the rightful owner).

3. Why would they warn him beforehand? So he can delete evidence?

4. Don't ever go into any field requiring logic and critical thinking, you clearly aren't cut out for either.

 

[admanimal]

Apple are tyrannical....I smell something fishy, Apple's tactics are downright suspect...

Yeah, the way they follow standard police procedure is practically criminal!

 

[ouimetnick]

1) you probably just slandered the guy. You have no proof he was drunk. You don't know that no one took the phone from him. You don't know that he was being an *******.

2) you admit that you are a thief ("if i want to keeps it, then i will") but you want people to return your own lost property ("people that would do the same for me."). That says enough about your ethics that people now know what kind of guy you are, and how much your analysis of the ethics is worth.

I never kept a phone I found though. But if a person is so clumsy and loses things that they say mean a lot to them, then it really doesn't mean much to them. My iPhone is either in my pocket or in my hands. sometimes several inches away from my eyes in a friends hands. Thats why I'VE NEVER LOST IT.

 

[M-5]

A.) The guy called standard Apple support numbers. If he knew enough to sell the phone to Gizmodo, he knew that the people at those numbers would not have a clue.

B.) Regardless of who technically owns the phone, any sane person would try to contact Gray once they knew his name and facebook info.

C.) Regardless of all of these things, what you assume is incorrect. Just because you can't find the owner of something doesn't make it yours (by law in California).

I didn't say that if someone didn't find the owner the property that it was theres. They knew the owner was Apple, and they contacted, as you said, their standard support numbers---unless of course that the person was supposed to look up Steve Jobs' personal phone number and attempt to reach the man. The Law says they must contact the owner. Gray Powell didn't own it unfortunately, so contacting the company that owns the device could be seen as taking sufficient measures to contact the owner.

 

[dlemmon]

Uh... finders keepers losers weepers, age old wisdom. Like calling shotgun, it's irrefutable.

 

[oldwatery]

As a business man, I think gizmodo should be sued. If they were willing to pay $5,000 for a phone, they knew it was Apple property. Gizmodo is the whining baby in this. They paid 5 grand and then disassembled and promoted the pics and info. They are guilty of industrial espionage. I hope Apple owns them and shuts them down.

Amen to that.
I'm sick of these Apple bashers here.
Gizmondo deserve all the grief they get from this.
They are cheats and thieves masquerading as news reporters.

 

[Takeo]

If the original guy was so innocent, he wouldn't have charged $5000 for it, and he wouldn't have known that it could be a prototype.

Exactly! "Oh... I swear I tried really hard to give it back before I went ahead and cashed in on it to the tune of 5 G notes". LOL

 

[ethana]

Balls!
The problem with North Americans is they are just THIEVES.

Give me a break dude. The majority of people are good people. This is a bullsh** comment.

 

[invisionblue]

Those of you complaining that Apple and the police are wrong must have no common sense.

This kid could have sold the prototype to Blackberry or any other cell phone company for them to steal apple's new ideas for their own gain in profit. There are a bunch of things that could have been done with finding this phone however returning it was not one of them unfortunately and now someone has to pay.

 

[BitDrive]

The most interesting and telling part of the seized inventory list is the box of business cards.

Let's extrapolate this... They already have access to Chen's personal information. They don't need the info that's on the cards. What they do need, however, is matching evidence. This leads me to believe that they've already seized property from the original sellers, and need to "match" the cards they found in their possession-- thus linking Chen to the deal.

Very interesting logic... I like it.

What no body has mentioned so far is, that although bricked, this phone was probably recording its GPS coordinates even if it were shut off... Only battery removal will stop it. Once they got the phone back, Apple probably hooked it up to some diagnostic equip and downloaded the GPS history, which likely gave the exact address of the original thief... Probably had his door knocked down the day before Chen. And they probably found one of those business cards you mentioned.

Karma Sucks Giz. I can't wait to see this play out.

 

[Robert M.]

More like a DRUNK loser lost the iPhone. Then someone found the drunk guys LOST iPhone and sold it. I see as the actions of the finder and giz as stupid and childish, but Gray's actions are plan retarded. He needs to get fired for it. A small mistake leading to a news reporters house getting searched?

You're calling the guy a drunk loser and retarded. Then saying what Gizmodo did was stupid and childish. Do you not see the irony in this post?

You must be a child because no self-respecting adult would use the word "retarded" to get their point across. It's kinda, um...stupid and childish!

Oh and Gizmodo isn't a news site! Msnbc.com is...

 

[jaykk]

Let This Be A Lesson To Those Who Cross Apple.

Don't Mess With A Company You Cant Match.

I think its not just about apple either, any company (be it MS or google) will do the same thing in this situation, report it to the police.

 

[admanimal]

I didn't say that if someone didn't find the owner the property that it was theres. They knew the owner was Apple, and they contacted, as you said, their standard support numbers---unless of course that the person was supposed to look up Steve Jobs' personal phone number and attempt to reach the man. The Law says they must contact the owner. Gray Powell didn't own it unfortunately, so contacting the company that owns the device could be seen as taking sufficient measures to contact the owner.

And as I said, regardless of their efforts to contact the owner, if that fails the next step they are required by law to take is handing it over to the police. At no point does the property just automatically become that of the finder.

 

[Hal Itosis]

That has yet to be proven.

Joker... way to "represent" your absurd avatar. [care to buy my iPod? it's yours for only $5000.]

There is little doubt that Apple pressed for this warrant.

It is enough to make me stop buying their products if this is going to be their tactics. An employee lost a phone, big deal, this is so far over the top it's crazy.

Today we already heard that Apple is telling some other guy he has "exceeded his life time limit on iPads" and now this crap....

**** you Apple... and I'm a FAN ! Just imagine the millage from people that hate your products!!!

Idiots.

been an avid mac user for well over a decade here, there used to be thousands of reasons for brand loyalty in my eyes. in the past 2 years tho every single one of them have disappeared. i've sold over 20 apple products in attempts to completely wash my hands of this company. they have lost interest in developing products that are enjoyable and consumer friendly, and are now focused on screwing their customers and raking in as much dough as possible at the expensive of everything that ever made them good. this is the nail in the coffin for me. first the app store, and it's closed nature, it's censorship, now this...cmon apple, you are a brazen joke. i don't care if you are so rich you can't see over the stacks of your gold coins. nobody interested in the furthering of technology from a consumer friendly point of view thinks your policies or products are worth a dime. you can keep selling this nonsense to the ed hardy tshirt wearing retards, but times will catch up. you've made enemies of adobe and google, and don't think they're ready to destroy you, and capable of doing it also. you're selling a device that you market as a way to get news content and a journalistic freedom tool. however you ban newspaper articles, editorial comments, and pulitzer prize winning articles from your device, THEN you violate the constitution by having an illegal police search of a journalists home just for reporting on a device that YOU lost. get over yourself apple. i sincerely hate your company, and no, i'm not an android, blackberry, windows, linux fanboy. i'm a hurt post-apple fanboy and i'm grotesquely disgusted with your politicts on and off the 'tech field' maybe you should start worrying about developing new products instead of censoring content, you haven't really released a new product in 4 years, the iphone/ipod have barely changed and the ipad is just an enlarged version, even running the identical OS. your new imacs have major cause for quality concerns, and your brand spanking new macbook line are heating up to over 217 degrees F. can't wait for that myriad of issues to start hitting tech blogs. spend more time worry about what YOUR'E doing and not journalists. or just go away forever.

Members theloon and katiepea: you both should be thankful that posting nonsense is still legal... else, right now might be a good time to start securely erasing all your disks.



I'd be curious to know how old you are, or what you majored in at college... but (on second thought), those answers would probably be too alarming to abide.

 

[jav6454]

Let This Be A Lesson To Those Who Cross Apple.

Don't Mess With A Company You Cant Match.

Oh really? I would have found I would have done the exact same thing. Except, I would have gone back home and posted the entire story from Honduras, far away from Apple's jurisdiction.

 

[Cartaphilus]

You and everyone else are acting like Gizmodo definitely knew that the phone was stolen at the time of payment, and not lost. How can you possibly state this as fact? After more information has come to light, it certainly looks like the individual who found the phone didn't follow due diligence in tracking down the owner. But at the time of payment, how could Gizmodo know this, and why should they be responsible to make sure? That's not how our legal system works.

If you buy a used car, do you get charged with a felony if the seller stole the car? Only if you knew it was stolen to begin with. And while Gizmodo may have had a suspicion, it will be nearly impossible to prove that they knew it was stolen at the time of purchase.

Here's why Gizmodo is guilty of receiving stolen goods: as they themselves published on their own website, Gizmodo was told by its seller exactly what he did to try to return the phone to its owner. Gizmodo, who apparently has access to competent legal counsel...well, legal counsel in any event...knew or as a reasonable person ought to have known that its seller's effort to return the phone were clearly insufficient to meet the law's "reasonable and just" efforts standard. Under applicable California law, this makes any act by the finder in derogation of the rights of the owner a theft.

In any event, California Civil Code details the precise process required for someone to obtain legal title to found valuables, a process that requires, among other things, delivering the goods to the police, filing a sworn report, sometimes placing an advertisement, and waiting the requisite time period to see if the owner is located. During all this time the police are charged with attempting to locate the owner.

The seller did none of these things either, and Gizmodo admits knowing that. Nonetheless, it gave $5,000 in cash to the seller to deliver to Gizmodo something that Gizmodo knew the seller didn't own. Then, instead of taking its own steps to attempt to locate the owner (something that Gizmodo with its resources and contacts could have easily have done) it started taking the phone apart, taking photos of it, and spreading Apple's trade secrets all over the internet for Apple's competitors to see.

The law does not require Gizmodo to admit that it knew the phone was stolen, nor does it require the People to prove that Gizmodo had actual knowledge that the phone was stolen; all that is required is that it prove that a reasonable person in Gizmodo's position would have known the phone was stolen--and it would be a very unreasonable person indeed who would not have come to that conclusion from the facts Gizmodo admits knowing.

On the other hand, if you would like to speak to a highly unreasonable person about this question, I can give you some usernames.

 

[BillHarrison]

According to california code, the item was only "Stolen" if the finder did not make "Reasonable" attempt to return the item. A phone call is REASONABLE attempt.

He does not have to use facebook, ibook, paypal, anything. If he attempted to call the owner (apple) and was shunned, then I think thats more than enough.

However, I have to wonder, at what point DOES it become stolen? I mean, Apple has the phone back. So was it ever stolen? Just because money traded hands does that mean its "Stolen"? If I find your lost dog, and I ask you to give me 50 bucks for gas to drive it to your house, is it now stolen? Was it stolen when he walked out of the bar?

Or was it never stolen because it was as Follows:

1: Lost
2: Found
3: Passed to 3rd Party (W/ Funds exchanging Hands)
4: Returned to apple

Does exchanging funds on a "Lost" item turn it into a stolen item? In what way?

I don't feel that automatically turns it into a stolen item. I mean, lets say my neighbor loses her dog. I am sitting at home a week later and a guy walks up and says hey, do you know who this dog belongs too, I found it last week. I say sure! It looks like my neighbors dog, she lost last week. But I have no way to contact her till tommorrow. He says hey, i hate to do this but I really need the 100 bucks I spent on dog food this week to feed this beast.

Now I hand him a 100 dollar bill, and take the dog into my possession, with full intentions of returning it to its owner.

Is the dog now stolen? According to everyone believing the iphone was stolen it is!


Was the item ever stolen? And what point did it BECOME stolen. And lets not forget, the legal system is, lets repeat this

INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY

Meaning this guy does NOT have to prove he took proper steps to return it! Its up to the prosecutor to PROVE he DID NOT take proper steps to return it.

NOT the other way around as everyone has been claiming.

Not to mention the fact that it WAS returned when the proper owner was found!

 

[sclawis300]

Yeah, the fact that the transaction was for a hefty sum ($5000) indicates that both the seller and Gizmodo knew what the device was, making it hard for them to make any claims to the contrary. I wonder if Apple is behind this, or if the CA police just picked up on the high profile story involving obvious "stolen" goods. Apple isn't the only company with R&D that they wouldn't want as potential jackpots for thieves, so this may be a pro-industry action in general.

are you kidding me? on what planet is $5,000 a hefty some for something like this. I think the $5,000 shows that they were skeptical about the device and thought, well we will give it a shot, it is just $5,000.