Two men who sold a lost iPhone 4 prototype to technology blog Gizmodo have been sentenced to one year of probation, avoiding jail time.
Brian John Hogan, 22, and Sage Robert Wallower, 28, were fined $250 (£159) - but allowed to keep the $4,750 (£3,014) they made from the sale.
They will also have to do 40 hours of public service.
An Apple engineer left the device at a bar in Redwood, California in March 2010, before it was unveiled.
Mr Hogan and Mr Wallower both pleaded no contest to a misdemeanour charge of theft of lost property.
Gizmodo journalists, including the editor Jason Chen, whose home was raided by police after the blog obtained the device for $5,000 (£3,173), escaped prosecution.
The judge considered that Mr Wallower had served in the armed forces and Mr Hogan was enrolled in San Jose State, and neither had any criminal record, and decided that jail time wasn't required.
"This was a couple of youthful people who should have known better."
Law Bite - A California law states that anyone who finds lost property and knows who the owner might be but "appropriates such property to his own use" is guilty of theft.
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