Owner of Home Searched by Apple Employees for Lost iPhone 5 to Sue
After the much-hyped launching of the iPhone 4S Tuesday, the saga on the iPhone 5 continues but this time it's not directly about the highly-anticipated device but rather on the no-no boo-boo of Apple Inc.'s overeager hunters of a lost prototype.
Apple security staff, acting as San Francisco policemen, apparently searched the home of Sergio Calderon, 22, in Bernal Heights in late July to find the unreleased iPhone 5 lost by another employee from a Mission District restaurant called Cava 22. Calderon's home apparently appeared on the hunters' search radar when they turned on the prototype's GPS signal. They, however, failed to find the missing device after the extensive search, plus a $300 offer to Calderon in exchange for turning over the handset.
All the while, Calderon thought the searchers were from the San Francisco Police Department, so he let them into his home. Now he knows they were not and plans to sue them for impersonating the cops, according to CNET.
Calderon has hired San Francisco attorney David Monroe to prepare the possible lawsuit and the lawyer is now gathering evidence for that purpose. Monroe is not ruling out including the SFPD in the suit because the police seemed to have participated in what he described as an "outrageous" search operation.
SFPD spokesman Lt. Troy Dangerfield already admitted that the police only escorted the Apple employees to Calderon's home and did not search his home, car and computer. But that does not completely absolve the police organization as Monroe learned that the iPhone 5 hunters already knew Calderon's first name when they came knocking at his door.