PALO ALTO, Calif. — The long arm of the law — and Internet — caught up with a former college football player accused of hacking into late Apple icon Steve Jobs’ home, authorities said.
Kariem McFarlin, 35, is accused to breaking into Jobs’ vacant Palo Alto, Calif., pad in mid-July and grabbing everything he could carry away, including the tech legend’s wallet with $1 inside, according law enforcement documents obtained by The Daily.
McFarlin’s biggest mistake was swiping Jobs’ computers, which connected to the Internet and Apple servers, linking cops to the suspect’s home in Alameda, about 30 miles away, officials said.
“McFarlin admitted to burglarizing the victim’s residence and admitted to several other burglaries in San Francisco,” according to Marshall Norton, an agent for the regional Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team (REACT) Task Force.
McFarlin’s confessed to taking two iMac computers, three iPads, three iPods, an Apple TV, Jobs’ wallet that had, in addition to $1, his California driver’s license, VISA card, Black Titanium American Express card and Apple corporate AMEX.
Also swiped from the house were a $33,000 Tiffany platinum and aquamarine necklace and nine carved aquamarine drops valued at $28,500. McFarlin allegedly admitted to selling the jewels to a dealer in Pennsylvania.
Authorities pinpointed the burglary to have gone down sometime after 5 p.m. on July 17 and before 7:50 a.m. on July 18.
Once McFarlin took the tech haul home, those hot machines hooked up with Apple servers and gave investigators the suspect’s IP address and virtual road map to his house, Norton wrote.
“Apple investigators informed me that new activity had occurred on Kariem McFarlin’s Apple iTunes account,” Norton penned.
“The account had been accessed using an Apple iPad, known to have belonged to the residential burglary victim.”
McFarlin explained he was down on his luck and been periodically homeless and sleeping in his car.
He played defensive back for San Jose State in 1998 and earned a bachelor’s in kinesiology in 2004, the school said.
Jobs’ home on Waverly Street is undergoing major renovations and widow Laurene Powell said she left “many of her belongings” there.
McFarlin told cops he didn’t know he was breaking into Jobs’ house until he spotted a letter with the late Apple founder’s name on it, officials said.
But he tempted fate and cyberspace and still went through with the burglary anyway, police said.
With AP