James Fleishman, 41, of Santa Clara, Calif., a sales manager for a research firm called Primary Global Research, based in Mountain View, was arrested on charges of wire fraud and conspiracy. According to a statement from Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, Fleishman conspired to provide confidential information, including material, non-public information to the firm’s clients using a network of employees at various tech firms.

One was Daniel Devore, a global supply manager at Dell who also worked as a consultant for the research firm. Devore pled guilty on Dec. 10 to charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The complaint against him says he was paid more than $145,000 during a period starting in late 2007 and ending in Aug. 2010 for providing inside information on Dell’s suppliers. Devore is said to be cooperating in the case.

Three more people were arrested today, all on charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud:

Mark Anthony Longoria, 44, of Round Rock, Texas, worked as a supply chain manager for Advanced Micro Devices. The complaint says Longoria provided Primary Global clients with revenue and gross margin information, sales figures and average sales prices, all very useful to stock traders. According to the complaint he was paid more than $200,000 for the information.

Walter Shimoon, 39, of San Diego, worked for Flextronics, the Singapore-based contract manufacturer as its senior director of business development. Between 2008 and 2010, the complaint says, he was paid $22,000 for consultation calls with Primary Global clients during which he supplied insider information about Flextronics’ dealings with Apple, filling them in with confidential details about the forthcoming iPhone models, and about the iPad.

Manosha Karunatilaka, 37 of Marlborough, Mass., worked for Taiwan Semiconductor Corp., the massive chip foundry company. The complaint says he provided Primary Global clients with insider information on that company, including confidential sales and shipping information, and was paid $35,000 between January of 2008 and June of 2010.

There’s more details here from The Wall Street Journal.

The criminal complaint is below:

Shimoon, Et Al. Complaint

A lot of this stuff has been out in one form or another, but the narrative is pretty fascinating. If you plow through the document embedded at the bottom of the post, bear in mind that it’s a tale told by Matthew Broad, a detective in San  Mateo County Sheriff’s office. So it’s possible that other parts of the story, and/or different versions of the same story, may still end up coming to light.

Among the highlights:

• Apple knew that Brian Hogan, the 21-year-old who found the iPhone, had the thing because his roommate, Katherine Martinson, called and told the company he had it. Her reasoning, according to Apple (AAPL) security chief Rick Orloff: “Suspect Hogan connected the stolen iPhone to her computer and she believed that Apple would eventually trace the iPhone back to her via IP addresses. Therefore she contacted Apple in order to absolve herself of criminal responsibility.”
• Martinson told police that Hogan had offered the phone to Gizmodo, AOL’s (AOL) Engadget.com and PC World. While Gizmodo owner Gawker Media had previously said it paid $5,000 for access to the phone, the affidavit is a bit fuzzier. Martinson says Hogan told her Gizmodo offered $10,000 for the gadget and later said he’d received $5,000 from Gizmodo and a total of $8,500. But she wasn’t clear where the other $3,500 came from. “Martinson said Hogan also told her that he will receive a cash bonus from Gizmodo.com in July if and when Apple makes an official product announcement regarding the new iPhone.”
• There’s a long cops-and-robbers interlude where police show up at Hogan’s house, but he takes off and is eventually tracked down at his father’s place. In the end, Hogan and Thomas Warner, another roommate, help the cops retrieve a computer, a flash drive and other equipment they’d removed from their place “in order to ‘protect’” Hogan.
• Apple CEO Steve Jobs did indeed reach out to Gizmodo to ask for the phone back. Here’s editor Brian Lam’s response to Jobs, via email (click to enlarge):

And here’s the entire affidavit, which we’re able to see because a group of media companies, including CNET, Bloomberg, Wired and the Los Angeles Times, petitioned a California judge to unseal it. Gawker Media, via COO Gaby Darbyshire, declined to comment on the affidavit and its contents.

UPDATE: Here’s Gawker’s position, via an email Darbyshire sent Saturday afternoon:

First of all, the warrant and supporting affidavit do not appear to acknowledge the sanctity of the newsroom or even address the serious issues at stake.

Second, the idea that it is a felony trade secret theft to photograph an item that was admittedly left in a bar is ridiculous.

Finally, Gizmodo from the start was attempting to investigate if this item was a genuine prototype of a product belonging to Apple; we believed that confirmation of its authenticity and ownership quite reasonably needed to be made in writing – and once we obtained that, the item was returned immediately.

EFF has a detailed piece on the warrant issue here.

Gizmodo-iPhoneOrder

It’s a well-intentioned bit of legislation and it doesn’t lack for emotional import, given the famous MySpace suicide case from which it takes its name, but c’mon. As worded here, the Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act essentially makes it a crime to hurt someone’s feelings. Worse, its definition of the speech used to do that is very loose and ripe for abuse. It would seem to cover, for example, an irate reader comment on this post or pointed criticism of a public official. Or flame wars? And that’s just silly, isn’t it? And beyond that, it’s a violation of the First Amendment.

“This cannot possibly be constitutionally permissible, it cannot possibly be a good idea, it cannot possibly be what the drafters intended, and yet that is what they wrote,” UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh told the St. Louis Post Dispatch. “If it is passed through Congress, I see it being struck down in courts,” he added.

Here’s hoping it doesn’t even make it that far…

In July, cyclist Christopher Long was charged with resisting arrest after participating in a bike rally through New York’s Times Square. But anyone who saw the video below–and since it has generated more than 1.6 million views on Google’s (GOOG) YouTube, that’s a lot of people–would have a hard time figuring out what Long did to get arrested.

And viewers might also wonder what the city of New York would do about police officer Patrick Pogan, who is the one knocking Long to the ground in the clip.

In September, charges against Long were dismissed. And now Pogan is about to be indicted–presumably for “felony charges of filing false records in connection with the police report that Officer Pogan filed after arresting the bicyclist”–reports the New York Times. Pogan could also be charged with a misdemeanor count of assault, says the NYT.

The Times, via its City Room blog, has been doing bang-up coverage of the story, which is pretty much designed to be consumed on the Web. Check out the fascinating story behind the video clip’s origins, and its journey to YouTube, here.

On information and belief, PSYSTAR alleges that APPLE intentionally embeds code in the Mac OS that causes the Mac OS to malfunction on any computer hardware system that is not an Apple-Labeled Computer Hardware System. Upon recognizing that a computer hardware system is not an Apple-Labeled Computer Hardware System, the Mac OS will not operate properly, if at all, and will go into what is colloquially known as ‘kernel panic.’

PSYSTAR is informed and believes, and thereon alleges, that APPLE is engaged in anticompetitive conduct that prevents the proper operation of the Mac OS on any computer hardware system that is not an Apple-Labeled Computer Hardware System–a Mac OS Capable Computer Hardware System–thereby forcing customers of the Mac OS to purchase–and only purchase–an Apple-Labeled Computer Hardware System if they wish to have the Mac OS operate sans kernel panic or an infinite loop.”

That’s an intriguing allegation. Risky though, since it’s also an admission that Psystar has circumvented the technological copyright-protection measures built into OS X, just as Apple claims in its amended complaint against the company. Apple contends Psystar has done so illegally, in violation of The Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Psystar says that’s impossible because the kernel panic-forcing code at issue here isn’t a copyright-protection measure.

Who’s right? Who knows? But if it’s Apple, then Psystar presumably is guilty of circumventing Apple’s copyright protection systems under the DMCA. And that’s a felony, because Psystar profited from the circumvention.