Court Exonerates Apple’s Security Chief in iPad-Gun Permit Bribery Case
Credit: Bermix Studio
Toggle Dark Mode
A long-running bribery case against Apple’s security chief has finally come to a conclusion with the company’s head of global security being found not guilty of exchanging iPads for gun permits.
News of the case first broke in late 2020, when a grand jury in Santa Clara, California, indicted Thomas Moyer, Apple’s chief security officer, on bribery charges. Moyer was alleged to have promised $70,000 worth of iPad “donations” to the county sheriff’s office one exchange for four concealed weapons permits (CCW licenses) needed for Apple security employees. Santa Clara County is the home of Apple Park.
From the start, it appeared that Moyer may have been inadvertently caught up in a much larger scandal inside the sheriff’s department, which had allegedly been requesting similar “arrangements” with other local businesses. Undersheriff Rick Sung and Sheriff’s Captain James Jensen were listed in those original indictments for requesting the alleged bribes, along with Harpreet Chadha, a local businessman and insurance broker, who was also indicted for a separate alleged bribery deal.
The Santa Clara District Attorney’s office seemed more interested in focusing on the Sheriffs, with DA Jeff Rosen stating in a press release that they “treated CCW licenses as commodities” and that Moyer and Chadha were “willing buyers” who agreed to these shady terms.
Following a two-year investigation, the DA’s office determined that the two members of the sheriff’s office had deliberately dragged their heels on issuing CCW licenses, “refusing to release them until the applicants gave something of value.”
The indictment alleged that this included four CCW permits for Apple employees, which the duo presumably refused to issue until Moyer promised that Apple would donate iPads to the county sheriff’s office. Apple began pursuing concealed firearms permits in 2017 to equip its executive protection team after Moyer’s staff reported receiving serious threats against Apple CEO Tim Cook — something that’s been sadly too common.
That donation never occurred, as the indictment claimed that Moyer and Sung scuttled the deal when they became aware of the investigation by the DA’s office. Nevertheless, the DA’s office believed the promise was enough to bring charges against Moyer.
After hearing of the allegations, Apple conducted its own internal investigation and cleared Moyer of any wrongdoing. Moyer’s lawyer, Ed Swanson, stated his belief that Apple’s security chief was being used as a pawn in a larger political dispute between the DA’s office and the county sheriff’s office.
While Moyer’s lawyers got the charges dismissed June 2021 based on incorrect instructions by the prosecutor to the grand jury, that dismissal was overturned in 2023 by a state appellate court, which noted that the lower court erred and added that the case was important as it “raises a question not yet addressed by any California court: whether a public official may be bribed with a promise to donate to the official’s office.”
According to AppleInsider, the case ended last week with Thomas Moyer being exonerated of the bribery charges. While the details of the trial aren’t available, the judge who dismissed the case in 2021 pointed to the lack of evidence that would suggest Moyer believed that the permits would not be released, adding that Apple had previously received confirmation that the permits would be issued in 2018, which predates the alleged bribery attempt, which occurred in February 2019.
