Police grant Apple security officials unlawful access to private home in search of missing iPhone 5 prototype

Monday, September 12, 2011 by: Jonathan Benson, staff writer
Tags: Apple, secret police, health news

(NaturalNews) Just weeks before the speculated launch of Apple Inc.'s long-awaited iPhone 5, the technology giant has once again lost a critical prototype of the unreleased smartphone, according to SF Weekly. After supposedly tracing the device back to the home of a San Francisco man, undercover Apple security agents were reportedly accompanied by San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) officers to the man's home, where they proceeded to search the home as if they were law enforcement.

According to SFPD Lt. Troy Dangerfield, "three or four" SFPD officers accompanied two Apple security agents, one of whom was later identified as Anthony Colon, to the Bernal Heights home of Sergio Calderon, the man believed to have possession of the missing prototype. The SFPD officers remained outside, but allowed the Apple employees to search Calderon's home, car, and computer for evidence of the phone. They never found anything.

"When they came to my house, they said they were SFPD," said Calderon to SF Weekly. "I thought they were SFPD. That's why I let them in," adding that if he had known the two agents were from Apple, he would have refused their entry. Neither one, according to Calderon, identified himself as being a private security officer.

Calderon had allegedly been visited previously by officers, six of whom came to his house in July and offered him $300 if he returned the device. But Calderon claims he has never had the device in his possession.

Dangerfield has admitted that SFPD officers accompanied the Apple agents to Calderon's house, and agrees that they remained outside. However, if it is later confirmed that the group failed to properly identify the two men that searched Calderon's home, the incident could be determined a misdemeanor crime for illegal impersonation of police officers.

Sources for this story include:

http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2011/09/...