Lost iPhone Investigation (UPDATED): Gizmodo Editor Jason Chen's Home Searched And Computers Seized

*We'll be updating the slideshow below with the latest updates on the iPhone probe as they come in*
SEATTLE (AP) -- Police have launched an investigation into the loss of an iPhone prototype and its sale to the tech blog Gizmodo.

Last week Gizmodo had one of the Web's hottest scoops when it posted photos of an Apple device that appeared to be a next-generation iPhone. It had been found in a bar in Redwood City and sold for $5,000 by an unknown person to Gizmodo, a gadget blog owned by Gawker Media Inc. After Chen posted photos and details about the phone, Apple acknowledged the device belonged to the company, and Gizmodo returned it. (Read Gizmodo's account of "How Apple Lost the Next iPhone.")

Authorities seized computers, digital cameras, a cell phone and other items from a technology blog editor who posted pictures and details of a lost iPhone prototype. A computer-crime task force made up of multiple law enforcement agencies searched Gizmodo editor and blogger Jason Chen's house and car. The warrant, issued by a Superior Court judge in San Mateo County, said the computers and other devices may have been used to commit a felony.

Read the most recent news and developments in the slideshow below.

1 of 11

REVEALED: Man Who Found And Sold Missing iPhone

1 of 12

First Slide

Previous Slide

@

Brian J. Hogan, a 21-year-old college student, has been unmasked as the man who found and then later sold Apple's iPhone prototype. Yahoo writes,

Hogan has now lawyered up, and in a statement released through his attorney, the young man says he "regrets his mistake in not doing more to return the phone," and that he thought his $5,000 deal with Gizmodo was only "so that they could review the phone," Wired reports. According to Hogan's attorney's statement, Hogan didn't see the lost iPhone until another patron at the Redwood City bar came up and asked him if it was his; Hogan apparently then asked a few other patrons if they'd lost the device before heading out, iPhone in hand, according to Wired.

Gizmodo claimed that Hogan contacted Apple directly in an effort to return the lost phone, but Hogan's lawyer has offered a different version of events. The attorney says that an acquaintance of Hogan's volunteered to phone Apple Care to notify them of the lost iPhone, but that this was "apparently...the extent of Hogan’s efforts to return the phone." Read more on Wired here.

5 People You Should Never Friend On Facebook

Xbox One vs. PlayStation 4

gadgets/slideshows/221347/slide_221347_883610_small.jpg

9 Best Google Glass Parodies

Fired Over Facebook: 10 Posts That Got People

5 Countries With Better Internet Service Than America

North Korea's Craziest Threats

Brian J. Hogan, a 21-year-old college student, has been unmasked as the man who found and then later sold Apple's iPhone prototype.

Yahoo writes,

Hogan has now lawyered up, and in a statement released through his attorney, the young man says he "regrets his mistake in not doing more to return the phone," and that he thought his $5,000 deal with Gizmodo was only "so that they could review the phone," Wired reports.


According to Hogan's attorney's statement, Hogan didn't see the lost iPhone until another patron at the Redwood City bar came up and asked him if it was his; Hogan apparently then asked a few other patrons if they'd lost the device before heading out, iPhone in hand, according to Wired.

Gizmodo claimed that Hogan contacted Apple directly in an effort to return the lost phone, but Hogan's lawyer has offered a different version of events. The attorney says that an acquaintance of Hogan's volunteered to phone Apple Care to notify them of the lost iPhone, but that this was "apparently...the extent of Hogan’s efforts to return the phone."

Read more on Wired here.

comments(2974)

Total comments: 2974 | Post a Comment

1 of 12

Update

Rank #2  |  Average: 4

Minor News Major News

• 
  1
• 
  2
• 
  3
• 
  4
• 
  5
• 
  6
• 
  7
• 
  8
• 
  9
• 
  10

Updates

loading...

Updates

UserName

 | Become a fan

Picked These as the Top 5 Slides in the Slideshow

loading...

Top User Slides

← Prev|Next →

 | Become a fan

Picked These as the Top 5 Slides in the Slideshow

loading...

Users who voted on this slide

← Prev|Next →

loading...

Comments

[PlayTOE]

08:01 AM on 05/05/2010

These guys knew it wasn't their property and tried to reverse engineer the device. A have no sympathy for them when Apple retrieves it's phone and information.

[GeorgeP922]

06:35 PM on 05/03/2010

Good Ole' LAPD.

Paris Hilton gets 2 DUI's spends 25 days in jail (a blond girl I know here in MD, same age, same looks got 6 months)

or the multiple revolving doors.

Someone steps on Apples toes by finding a lost phone and you have task forces and raids.

Shame on Apple, the only reason I tell people not to boycott them is that they are an American company, even though the physical engineering is outsourced to China.

When and if I do make the stupid decision to get a "smart" phone, it will be by Google, a respectable company that is on OUR side.

[GatorAtLarge]

10:29 AM on 05/03/2010

Gizmodo sucks at criminal transactions

'HEY LOOK AT ME!! I JUST BOUGHT STOLEN PROPERTY FOR $5K FROM AN "HONEST" DUDE!!"

[PlayTOE]

08:03 AM on 05/05/2010

I wonder what they thought would happen?

[JasonMcl]

08:47 AM on 05/03/2010

The Apple product life-cycle explained...

http://i.imgur.com/RdcuT.jpg

It all makes sense now.

[Mermaids daddyo]

06:24 PM on 05/03/2010

Anyone who buys the first release of any product gets what they deserve.

[meekasop]

02:41 AM on 05/03/2010

If only he didn't published it and just taken sideglances like what engadget did --- this won't happen. But I guess, the appearance of a new iPhone is very lustful to a naked eye, isn't? I do hope gawker is helping him though.. Reactions. http://2su.de/RPoF

[Yurdelite51]

06:15 PM on 05/02/2010

Jason Chen you have no integrity.

[Nathan Nash]

11:16 PM on 05/02/2010

I agree that there hasn't been an overwhelming amount of integrity in the matter but the way Apple is handling this is a little creepy. I'm starting to agree with the people who think they(Apple) are becoming the IBM that they feared in '84.

See slides: 2, 9 and 11 for info to support the notion that they may be turning into a Big Brother like company.

[Yurdelite51]

01:25 AM on 05/03/2010

Microsoft too. There was no integrity in this whole situation.

[GeorgeP922]

06:38 PM on 05/03/2010

Do you put your iphone between your cheeks at night to keep it warm?

Let me know when any local police dept is ready to do RAIDS on people's houses who found what I dropped at the bar last night.

[Yurdelite51]

06:57 PM on 05/03/2010

Just calling out the dishonesty and the person who found it is dishonest too. I don't own one and don't intend to get one. I have seen how addicted my daughter is to it and I don't want anything like that. Besides there is some technology I just do not feel like dealing with at this stage of my life and the I phone is one.

[Goliadkin]

09:06 AM on 05/02/2010

"Badges? We don't need no stinkin' badges."--The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

[JazzHands]

08:11 AM on 05/03/2010

Wrong. That exact quote is from Blazing Saddles, the line in tTotSM is different. The actual, original quote from the film goes, "Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges! I don't have to show you any stinkin' badges!"

[Patrick Britton]

03:38 AM on 05/02/2010

This has to be a prototype, it's hideous.

[JessWonderin]

12:31 AM on 05/02/2010

Apple handled this like the elitist techogeeks that they claim NOT to be . . . nothing worse than a rich geek who can't handle liquor, personal property or a simple PR issue . . . .

[Kyo Hanakara]

10:51 PM on 05/01/2010

wow people make such a big fuss over nothing.

[JBS]

10:03 PM on 05/02/2010

Even going so far as to file false police reports.

[TBrennan]

04:34 PM on 05/01/2010

Suck it, Apple.. I loved Jon Stewart's new label for them....Appholes. I use a Blackberry but I do enjoy my iPod. I still Steve Jobs to Suck It. I hope the Teabaggers come down on them for all the violations against liberty. A bunch of over empowered appholes.

[planetarywisdom]

02:40 PM on 05/01/2010

YOU would think America's greatest periodical THE NATIONAL ENQUIRER would be devoting its best investigors to this story, looking AT APPLES LIES AS THEY WERE PRESENTED TO OFFICIALS AND TO THE COURT. To the best of my knowledge such LIES are not allowed in our system of justice
and that is really all there is to it. I AM WAITING FOR national enquirer to lay
out
.................................the apple lie machine........................one by one

[drob20]

10:35 AM on 05/03/2010

Why do you randomly capitalize WORDS? Just curious...

[wendelswerk]

02:10 PM on 05/01/2010

Journalism at its best!

[writeon1]

01:11 PM on 05/01/2010

The guy that left it was stupid, the guy that took it was stupid, the guy that bought it was stupid and Apple is also acting in a stupid manner. These are not CIA secrets people, where is 007 or Nancy Drew? They could have solved the crime without a boatload of taxpayer money.

[GalinMcMahon]

11:30 AM on 05/01/2010

So now it's a felony to sell something you find laying around on the floor? Crash a nation's economy, get a bonus. Sell a found phone, get a mugshot. I'll never understand this country.

[Gatorboy]

03:29 PM on 05/01/2010

It was on the floor? really?

And why is the economy bad?

Because of thieves like this working on wall street. He just borrowed a phone, they just borrowed our money. No difference, except in the scale of the crine.

[siasina]

07:57 PM on 05/01/2010

He works on Wall Street? Really?

[Nathan Nash]

11:18 PM on 05/02/2010

I think it was on the bar stool, according to gizmodo's report on how they found it.