n in Touch Over Lost IPhone

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

One assumes Apple is not eager  to be in a court with discovery  djf

Begin forwarded message:

From: "CONNIE GUGLIELMO, BLOOMBERG/ NEWSROOM:" <cguglielmo1 () bloomberg net>
Date: April 23, 2010 6:40:23 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: (BN) Gizmodo Says Police Haven’t Been in Touch Over Lost IPhone



+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Gizmodo Says Police Haven’t Been in Touch Over Lost IPhone
2010-04-23 22:38:44.690 GMT


By Connie Guglielmo and Karen Gullo
    April 23 (Bloomberg) -- Gizmodo.com, which obtained a
secret iPhone prototype after it was left behind at a bar by an
Apple Inc. engineer last month, said it hasn’t been contacted by
police investigating the case.
    “We haven’t been contacted by law enforcement,” said Gaby
Darbyshire, chief operating officer of Gawker Media, which owns
Gizmodo. The blog said earlier this week that it returned the
phone to Apple after a request from the company’s top lawyer.
    Gizmodo got the iPhone after Apple engineer Gray Powell
left the device in a bar in Redwood City, California, on March
18, according to the blog. A patron found the device on a stool
and sold it to Gizmodo for $5,000 after trying unsuccessfully to
contact Apple about it, the blog said.
    Stephen Wagstaffe, chief deputy district attorney for San
Mateo County, which has jurisdiction over Redwood City, declined
to say whether there is an investigation over the iPhone.
    “If there is a case that is investigated and able to be
submitted for prosecution, it will be handled by this office,”
Wagstaffe said in an interview today.
    Gizmodo wrote about the iPhone prototype after
disassembling it. The site said it wasn’t certain the phone was
legitimate until receiving the letter from Apple lawyer Bruce
Sewell on April 19. The letter requested the return of “a
device that belongs to Apple.” Gizmodo said it returned the
prototype to the company that same day.

                     Not ‘Finders Keepers’

    Cnet.com, citing an unnamed law enforcement official,
reported earlier today that a Silicon Valley crime task force
may be looking into the circumstances around the lost iPhone.
    “The finder may have broken the law,” said Peter Henning, a
law professor at Wayne State University Law School in Detroit.
“The law of theft isn’t ‘finders, keepers.’ If you know that
something has just been mislaid, you can take it and return it,
but you can’t take it and keep it, or sell it.”
    Amy Cornell, a public information officer for the task
force -- known as the Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team, or
REACT -- said today that any investigation would be handled by
San Mateo County officials and referred questions to Wagstaffe.
    Steve Dowling, a spokesman for Cupertino, California-based
Apple, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

For Related News and Information:
Apple earnings: AAPL US <EQUITY> CH1 <GO>
Apple earnings stories: AAPL US <EQUITY> TCNI ERN <GO>
Apple revenue segments: AAPL US <EQUITY> PGEO <GO>
Apple management: AAPL US <EQUITY> MGMT <GO>
For top technology stories: TTOP <GO>

--Editors: Nick Turner, Lisa Wolfson

To contact the reporters on this story:
Connie Guglielmo in San Francisco at +1-415-617-7134 or
cguglielmo1 () bloomberg net;
Karen Gullo in San Francisco at +1-415-355-1916 or
kgullo () bloomberg net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Tom Giles at +1-415-617-7223 or tgiles5 () bloomberg net



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