Prosecutor charges two in 2010 sale of iPhone 4 prototype

10.08.2011
A California county district attorney's office has decided not to press charges against Gizmodo or former editor Jason Chen for the blog's part in a 2010 case involving a lost Apple iPhone 4 prototype.

Instead, two other men have been charged with misdemeanors, the San Mateo County District Attorney's office said today.

Brian Hogan, 22, of Redwood City, and Safe Wallower, 28, of Emeryville, have been accused of misappropriation of lost property, and in Wallower's case, also with possession of stolen property.

The property in question was an early version of the iPhone 4 that had been left at a Redwood City bar by an Apple engineer in late March 2010. as the person who sold the iPhone to Gizmodo, which published photographs and analysis of the device several months before Apple officially unveiled the smartphone.

Most experts, including an experienced tear-down specialist interviewed by Computerworld, had judged the Gizmodo-pictured prototype as the

Gizmodo admitted to for the iPhone prototype. It later returned the smartphone to Apple after the Cupertino, Calif. company's lawyers asked for it back.