Apparently they did, and were ignored. Nobody has come up with anything that refutes this so far.
I look at it as: someone made an innocent mistake losing a phone, someone found a phone and called a company, Apple's bureaucracy fucked up and didn't respond as soon as it should have.
Nope. He had Gray Powell's information but didn't contact him. He took it from the bar and then didn't check back, despite that being the obvious first place it would be looked for. He didn't take it to the police, despite that being both common sense and the law.
Instead, he claims he tried calling a public apple number or two and then sold it.
Again, I'm not quite sure the californian police care items left by drunk people in public places.
Though, I upvote you, because all this time, I thought it was steve.jobs@apple.com :/
Did you mean Gizmodo? Or am I completely out of the loop on this one?