Phone Call From The Vatican: Steve Jobs’s Direct Involvement In iPhone Prototype’s Recovery

The dust still hasn’t settled from the first purported iPhone 4G prototype that got out into the wild.

According to recently-unsealed San Mateo, CA court documents, one Brian Hogan is the mysterious “Suspect X” who found the dropped prototype, then sold it to Gizmodo for US$5,000.00 — with the tech blog promising Hogan another US$3,500.00 if that was the device Apple planned to unveil in July.

Not only that, but a day before Gizmodo popped the unit open and posted pictures of its innards, Uncle Steve himself called the editors and demanded the phone be returned. 

Since then, Gizmodo editor Jason Chen had his apartment raided by police, his computer equipment confiscated, and is under investigation for theft, receiving stolen property and damaging property — and Hogan and his roommate may face charges as well that they attempted to hide evidence in a panic when word of the police investigation got out.

Interestingly, the investigators themselves have come under fire for allegedly leaping into action at Apple’s request.  And San Mateo prosecutors’ attempts to keep the court documents sealed were foiled when the Associated Press (and several other media companies) convinced a Superior Court judge that disclosure was necessary to ensure that the raid of Chen’s home was proper.

[Via Yahoo Finance]