Security exec for Apple is indicted
The head of global security for Apple was indicted for what prosecutors said was his role in an alleged bribery scheme to obtain gun permits in exchange for political donations, the Santa Clara district attorney’s office announced Monday.
Apple Chief Security Officer Thomas Moyer, 50, is accused of bribing members of the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office with iPads in a bid to secure concealedweapon permits.
Josh Rosenstock, a spokesman for Apple, said in an email that the company “conducted a thorough internal investigation and found no wrongdoing” after learning of the allegations against Moyer.
Moyer’s indictment is the result of a twoyear investigation by the district attorney into whether Sheriff Laurie Smith gave out the coveted gun permits in exchange for bribes and campaign
“Ultimately, this case is about a long, bitter, and very public dispute.” Ed Swanson, attorney for Apple Chief Security Officer Thomas Moyer, who was indicted Monday in an alleged bribery scheme.
donations. Investigators raided the sheriff’s San Jose headquarters last year, seizing evidence in the alleged pay to play scheme that has so far ensnared the sheriff’s two lieutenants, Capt. James Jensen and Undersheriff Rick Sung.
Sung and Jensen have also been indicted in the probe. They are accused of using concealedweapon permits as bargaining chips for material donations to the Sheriff’s Office in addition to thousands of dollars in political donations toward Smith’s 2018 reelection campaign, said district attorney spokesman Sean Webby.
Moyer promised to donate 200 iPads, worth close to $ 70,000, to the Sheriff’s Office, prosecutors say, in exchange for four gun permits from the Sheriff’s Office.
The alleged bribe “was scuttled at the eleventh hour” after the accused conspirators learned of a search warrant to seize gun licensing records, the district attorney’s office said.
Moyer’s attorney, Ed Swanson, called the charges “baseless” and said Moyer is innocent.
“Ultimately, this case is about a long, bitter, and very public dispute between the Santa Clara County Sheriff and the District Attorney, and Tom is collateral damage to that dispute,” Swanson said in a statement.
Moyer is not the first businessperson to be swept up in the district attorney’s yearslong investigation of the Sheriff Office’s alleged bribery scheme. The district attorney’s office opened its investigation in 2018 after public records revealed that a manager at AS Solution, a Silicon Valley private security firm, had received a gun permit just months after he donated $ 45,000 toward Smith’s reelection efforts.
The security firm told The Chronicle last year that it cooperated with prosecutors in the probe. The company has provided executive protection to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google executives and other CEOs in Silicon Valley.
Jensen was indicted by a grand jury earlier this year in connection with the alleged scheme. Prosecutors allege he assisted Sung in withholding the concealed weapons licenses, difficult to obtain permits that the Sheriff’s Office has broad discretion to administer.
Moyer’s and Sung’s indictments, filed Thursday, relied on 32 witnesses, suggesting a broad scheme to raise political funds ahead of a contested election.
Apple confirmed Moyer was placed on leave from the company at his own request.
A 14year Apple employee, Moyer rose to the top security post in 2018, overseeing the company’s corporate and retail security and safeguarding secretive new products and prototypes, according to his lawyer.