The tip sent police racing to the home of 21-year-old Brian Hogan, and began a strange scavenger hunt for evidence that a friend of Hogans had scattered around this Silicon Valley community. Police recovered a desktop computer stashed inside a church, a thumb drive hidden in a bush alongside the road, and the iPhones serial-number stickers from the parking lot of a gas station.
The 10-page search-warrant affidavit (.pdf) unsealed Friday at the request of Wired.com and other news organizations sheds new light on the events surrounding the sale of the prototype to Gizmodo, the Gawker Mediarun gadget-news site that paid Hogan $5,000 for the device.
Gizmodo dropped a bombshell on the gadget world April 19 with a detailed look at the iPhone prototype, which an Apple employee named Robert Gray Powell had lost at a bar. Gizmodo has acknowledged paying $5,000 for the phone and returned the phone to Apple after publishing its story about the prototype.
The affidavit confirms that Steve Jobs personally contacted Gizmodo to ask for the phone back, as reported by Newsweek last month.
According to the document, the roommate said Hogan told her he received a total of $8,500 for the phone. The roommate also told police Gizmodo promised Hogan a bonus if and when Apple officially announced the product.
Police are investigating Gizmodo editor Jason Chen for possible receipt of stolen property, copying of a trade secret, and destruction of property worth more than $400, according to the affidavit, which was filed in support of a search warrant for Chens home. Gizmodo partly disassembled the iPhone, a process that Apple alleges left it damaged.
Apple also told the police that the publication of Gizmodos story was immensely damaging to the company, because consumers would stop buying current generation iPhones in anticipation of the upcoming product. Asked the value of the phone, Apple told the police it was invaluable.
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