If someone purchased stolen property, why does it matter who it came from? In my eyes, the analyst loses a lot of credibility with this final statement. Feels childish.
It's all a matter of relative value. This iPhone prototype was worth a lot more than the parts inside (which was obvious to Gizmodo since they paid upwards of $5000 for it).
Didn't they send Apple something like, "We believe we found a prototype phone which might be yours. If so, let us know and we'll be glad to give it back."
I certainly hope all thieves were like that...
Well, no.
The law gives him the option of: 1) finding the owner and returning it, or 2) turning it in to the police.
What the guy actually did, it seems, was poke around in the phone, find out the name, Facebook details, etc. of the person who'd lost it, and then... called an Apple customer-support line to tell them a vague story about finding something that might or might not legitimately be an iPhone.
Even if we accept that as a bona-fide attempt to return it to the owner, the only other option the law gives him is turning it in to the police. From that point forward, anything he did which was not "turn it in to the police" qualifies as theft; the relevant bit of California law has been quoted so many times in so many threads that there's really no argument left on that point.
And since "sell it to a tabloid for $$$" is not "turn it in to the police", well, you can kinda see how we end up at criminal investigations and search warrants.
Did Gizmodo return the phone to Apple immediately when Apple finally admitted it was theirs? Did Gizmodo demand payment from Apple in return for the phone? Did Gizmodo ever dispute Apple's claim to the phone? It doesn't really seem reasonable to me that anyone at Gizmodo ever thought they were "buying" the device.