Suspects In The Case Of Prototype IPhone Plead Not Guilty

Redwood City, Calif. - Two men pleaded guilty to the crime of theft charges in a case involving four prototype of the iPhone a couple accused of selling gadget blog Gizmodo last year.

In an appearance Thursday morning, lawyers for Brian Hogan, the man who would have found the prototype of a bar after he was left there by an Apple engineer, and Robert Sage Wallowa who is accused of loading and possession of stolen property entered their pleas before Superior Court Judge Jonathan Karesh.

Karesh scheduled a conference Oct. 11 tentative, and a trial date of November 28 he said that neither defendant would be required to post bond and men could be released on his own, which is common in non-felony case.

Jeff Bornstein, a criminal defense attorney at K & L Gates in San Francisco that represents Hogan, told ZDNet Asia sister site CNET, after the indictment that he welcomed the decision of the district attorney to submit the charges as crimes rather than crimes. It shows the prosecutors are "sensitive to the facts and circumstances" of the case, he said.

Prototype of the iPhone in Hogan and Wallowa case should not be confused with a study of another unreleased iPhone. Previously CNET reported yesterday that the employee has lost control of the device Cava22, a Mexican-style hotel in the Mission District of the city, and Apple security followed him into a nearby house, but can not find it.

Wallower, a former Navy cryptographic technician, who was scheduled to be completed at the University of California at Berkeley in 2010, told CNET last year in a personal interview at home: "I do not see or touch any way, but I know that he found it. ".

In early August, filed the San Mateo County prosecutors misdemeanor charges against the two men. They would have had an iPhone prototype 4 after Robert Gray Powell, an Apple computer engineer, who was 28 years old at the time, left in a German beer garden in Redwood City, California

Prosecutors had to look behind the house Gizmodo Editor Jason Chen, and announced that he can be prosecuted for Gizmodo, but eventually decided not to press charges.

Children under California law for the year 1872, a person who finds lost items and find out who the owner is likely to be - but to "take possession of the property for personal use" - is guilty of theft. In addition, another state law says a person who knowingly receives the property was obtained illegally can be imprisoned up to one year.