Fox News had 'mole's iPhone taken away

Remember the "Fox News Mole" Joe Muto? The former Fox News employee who partnered up with the irreverent website Gawker to write anonymous blog posts about dirty Fox News secrets that turned out not to be so dirty (at least not within the two posts he actually wrote)?

After Fox sniffed him out within 24 hours and fired him shortly thereafter, the news network threatened legal action. They weren't kidding.

This morning, Muto tweeted that he was served with a search warrant and was being accused of grand larceny by Fox News.

As anyone would do in this situation, Muto tweeted about it.

Forbes has the potential charges Muto may face from Fox:

One charge that might be considered for Muto is “computer tampering.” Though Muto, as a (then) associate producer for The O’Reilly Factor had legitimate access to the Fox News outtake videos that he passed along to Gawker, New York law forbids “unlawful duplication of computer related material…[that] wrongfully deprives or appropriates from an owner an economic value in excess of $2,500.” Muto was fingered by Fox as the Mole because he had accessed two behind-the-scenes videos — of Newt Gingrich being groomed ‘like a circus walrus’ and Mitt Romney bantering with Sean Hannity — that wound up on Gawker in recent weeks. Gawker told my Forbes colleague Jeff Bercovici that it paid Muto $5,000 for his posts and for those videos, which, by my count, is indeed in excess of $2,500.

Best of luck.

[FishbowlNY, Forbes]