iPhone 4 Prototype Sellers Get Probation, The Saga Is Over
It appears as though the long drawn out dramatic saga surrounding Apple’s leaked iPhone 4 prototype is finally over. According to court documents, Brian John Hogan, 22, and Sage Robert Wallower, 28, the two men accused of selling the device to tech blog Gizmodo, pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of theft of lost property. The two will avoid jail time and were sentenced to a year probation, 40 hours of public service and told to pay $250 in damages to Apple. The remaining $5,000 they received for the prototype is theirs to keep.
Throughout the whole ordeal Gizmodo has managed to escape legal prosecution, and it looks as though the two guys responsible for selling the prototype are getting off pretty easy-all things considered.
In the wake of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs’s death, former Gizmodo editor Brian Lam wrote in a blog post that he had regrets about how the iPhone 4 prototype deal went down.
“I just wanted to say that I wish things happened differently. I probably should have quit right after the first story was published for several different reasons,” Lam wrote. “I didn’t know how to say that without throwing my team under the bus, so I didn’t. Now I’ve learned it’s better to lose a job I don’t believe in any more than to do it well and keep it just for that sake.”
