Even if you believe every word of the account written at Gizmodo, the original "finder" does not escape the penal code I cited. The description given, of the person contacting Apple's support phone number is in no way a "reasonable" effort to return the property, especially when they knew the name of the person who "lost" it and the relatively close address of Apple's HQ. They could have rather easily called the Apple building rather than customer support. Even failing any and all attempts, their next step would be to turn the device over to the police. Which they didn't do. Instead, they sold it. Selling property you don't own is a crime.

Sorry, this just doesn't fly.

But, besides all arguments, I'm not putting an ounce of faith in anything Gizmodo is saying. There is much more, or rather, much less to this story than they represent. Likely it's a lot more simple, yet potentially more nefarious. Gizmodo has gone to a lot of trouble to publicize this while diverting attention away from the real questions that should be asked. They've gone so far as to try and paint Apple like idiots for not having been able to recover the phone themselves earlier and for not having had the phone password protected. Yeah, blaming the victim is going to earn you lots of points.

It's doubtful Apple would risk negative press by suing, but I'd love to see the authorities get in on the action without Apple's insistence nonetheless. We may never know the truth behind what actually happened.