Enlarge /. Apple's global headquarters in Cupertino, California.
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A grand jury in Santa Clara County, California, has indicted Thomas Moyer, Apple's head of global security, with bribery. Moyer is alleged to have offered the Santa County sheriff's office 200 iPads in exchange for covert carrying permits for four Apple employees.
Moyer's attorney says he didn't do anything wrong, and Apple in particular is behind his executive branch.
"We expect all employees to behave with integrity," an Apple spokesman said in a statement. "After learning of the allegations, we conducted a thorough internal investigation and found no wrongdoing."
Two officers in the office of Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith were also charged. These officials are charged with soliciting the alleged bribe.
California law gives sheriffs a wide discretion in deciding who is allowed to carry hidden weapons in the state. Smith was previously charged with deliberately refusing permission to carry hidden weapons until petitioners did Smith a favor. An NBC Bay Area investigation in June found that donors for Smith's re-election campaign were 14 times more likely to get concealed carry permits than those who did not donate.
A press release from Smith's office described the charges as "a difficult time for our organization".
Jeff Rosen, the Santa Clara district attorney responsible for the charges, said the 200 iPad donation was sunk at the last minute after Rosen received a search warrant on the case.
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According to LinkedIn, Moyer is responsible for "Apple's strategic management of corporate and retail security, crisis management, executive protection, investigations and new product secrecy."
While two people were charged in Sheriff Smith's office, no charges were brought against Smith himself. Rosen says the investigation is still ongoing. A common prosecution strategy is to focus on subordinates first in order to pressure them to produce evidence against their boss.
Others are also charged with bribery
On the same day that he indicted Moyer, Rosen also accused an insurance broker, Harpreet Chadha, who also applied for concealed carry from the Santa Clara Sheriff's office. Chadha is alleged to have provided Smith with $ 6,000 worth of tickets to a luxury box suite at a game of San Jose Sharks.
"Sheriff Laurie Smith's family members and some of their greatest supporters celebrated their re-election as sheriff in Chadha's suite," said Rosen.
Chadha's attorney described the charges as a "serious judicial mistake".
In August, Rosen accused four people of another bribery program involving the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office. The alleged program involved the trade in campaign donations for concealed carrying permits. One of the accused, James Jensen, was a sheriff captain who was also indicted in the indictment against Apple's Moyer last week.
The August indictment centered on an effort to obtain covert carrying permits for a company that provides security for Facebook executives.
"You have to meet my buddy who runs the Facebook Executive Protection team," one of the defendants wrote to a lawyer charged in the case. "It's a potential of $ 50,000."
The conspirators then allegedly met over a San Jose jamba juice and allegedly struck a deal where the sheriff's office would provide 10 to 12 covert carry permits in exchange for $ 90,000 worth of campaign contributions.
All defendants could be jailed if convicted.
