The San Francisco Police Department backtracked Friday and said that it did dispatch officers to a San Francisco man’s home in July to assist Apple security officials looking for a missing iPhone 5 prototype device.
An SFPD spokesman told SF Weekly that “three or four” plainclothes officers went with two Apple security officials on the visit to 22-year-old Sergio Calderón’s home in the Bernal Heights neighborhood of San Francisco, but “did not go inside the house.” An iPhone 5 prototype reportedly went missing at a San Francisco restaurant called Cava22 in late July and Apple investigators reportedly tracked it to Calderón’s home.
Calderón told SFWeekly earlier that six officials claiming to be SFPD officers searched his home in July about a missing iPhone that they didn’t identify as a prototype, threatening his relatives their immigration status, and at one point, offering him $300 if he returned the missing device.
Another SFPD spokesman earlier told SF Weekly that the department had no record of any such activity by its officers, leading to speculation that Apple security may have impersonated the police to gain access to Calderón’s home. But that version of events, which would potentially have caused Apple and its security team serious legal problems, no longer appears to be operative, though Calderón has claimed that at no time did any of the people who searched his home identify themselves as Apple employees.
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Though the two private Apple investigators reportedly searched the house, as well as Calderón’s car and computer files, no trace of it was found. Calderón denies ever having it, though he did say he was at Cava22 on the night the iPhone prototype is thought to have gone missing. There has also been speculation that somebody sold the device in question on Craigslist at some point.
There is also a question of what role the SFPD officers and the private Apple investigators played in the search, given the SFPD’s insistence that its officers never entered Calderón’s home.
SFPD spokesman Lt. Troy Dangerfield said the three or four plainclothes officers at the scene “stood outside while the Apple employees scoured Calderón’s home, car, and computer files for any trace of the lost iPhone 5,” according to SF Weekly.
It does seem “unusual,” as the alternative weekly put it, for police officers to allow private investigators to search a home in this fashion. Calderón did tell SF Weekly that he gave permission for the search, however.
One of the Apple employees reportedly gave Calderón his business card. SF Weekly has identified the owner of that card as Anthony Colon, who listed himself on a now-deleted LinkedIn profile as a former San Jose Police Department sergeant and current senior investigator working for Apple.
