Wired identifies iPhone 4G finder

If these guys had thought a little more about it, it would have gone like this:<p>1. Brian asks the techy guys at Gizmodo for their help in identifying and returning a strange phone to its rightful owner<p>2. Gizmodo hires Brian as a consultant on the project for $5000, pictures and notes are taken while identifying its owner and origin<p>3. Phone is shipped back to engineer/Apple within 24 hours<p>4. Gizmodo publishes a blog entry detailing the successful investigation and return of the phone<p>:)

Brian Hogan is in serious trouble, but it's trouble he put himself into. He damn well could have walked into an Apple store, or even Apple HQ (he lives in the area), and dropped the phone off there, rather than looking for some skeezy way to milk essentially stolen goods. So if he really did the things that are written about him, he belongs in jail. Remember that ignorance of the law is no excuse in legal contexts.

That set of facts doesn't look good for Brian J. Hogan.<p>Once he suspected what it was he made no effort to return the device, but made a good deal of effort to sell it to a tech blog. Err... excuse me, his lawyer wants people to say <i>share it with a tech blog</i>.

From the beginning, I thought Brian's and Gizmodo's best defense would be to say "We collaborated to try to find the owner through a large platform." How well that will work with "$5k for exclusive access" is questionable.

<i>...he believed the payment was for allowing the site exclusive access to review the phone.</i><p>The attorney keeps stressing this like it's the cornerstone of their defense. Are they trying to say that he was paid for access to review, not in exchange for the (stolen) iPhone itself?

Shame the $5000 he made will now be eaten up in attorney fees