In the spring of 2010, Brian Hogan, the man in the picture, sold a prototype of the gizmodo publication iPhone 4 which Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC), he was going to present it just a few months later. At that time Steve Jobs ordered the head of the security team within Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC), to ask for the help of the police to search the man's house, but he had long ago sold the terminal for the amount of $5000, and this decision was not going to be that beneficial to him. Almost 3 years later, Hogan speaks through the Reddit website about the whole story and not everything we knew until now turns out to be true.
Gizmodo told me they would give me $5,000 for the story, and another $3,000 after it was confirmed by Apple to be real. They knew that there was no way in hell I was going to be able to ask for the $3,000 after the story aired, but I didn't. I ended up having to hire an expensive lawyer and had to pay him much more than $5,000.
The part about the sale of the terminal to Gizmodo is true, but the man was supposed to receive $8000 in two installments, one of $5000 and one of $3000, but in the end he only received the first installment, the rest not being in his possession after the police were notified by Apple. Despite the fact that Apple filed a complaint against the man and a friend of his for possession of stolen property, in the end they were only sentenced to 40 hours of community service and a $125 fine, but the court costs were much higher than that.
Q: How long was it until you went back to your house?
A: All it all probably 3 weeks after the police first tracked me down. Turns out my room mate was talking to the cops the whole time, giving them everything they wanted to try and collect a reward. She took pictures of my things, wrote down conversations, and flat out lied about certain stuff so the cops could get the most damning case possible. She told them when I caught wind of what she was doing and they came to "talk." I went to my parents house and she told them where that too (sic).
Even if Apple will no longer file a lawsuit against him, the man claims that the police and the company found him quite hard, 3 weeks passed from the moment the terminal disappeared to the moment the police arrived at his door. They were also helped by the fact that his roommate denounced him hoping to receive a reward, but in the end nothing was decided. Those from Gizmodo promised him that they would hire a lawyer to defend him, but this did not happen either and he paid handsomely for an iPhone 4 found.
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