Geohot Arrested on Marijuana Possession Charge While En Route To SXSW

George Hotz, aka Geohot, who pioneered jailbreaking the iPhone, was reportedly arrested last week for possession of marijuana while heading to South by Southwest (SXSW) inAustin,TX.  The arresting officer’s ‘Drug Dogs’ smelled marijuana in the car and found it under the back seat after a search, the sheriff said. According to Abovethelaw, Geohot was found with1/4 oz. of marijuana and chocolate edibles equivalent to less than 1/8 oz. of the drug by the Department of Homeland Security officers in Sierra Blanca.

Interestingly, Law enforcement valued the “special” chocolate truffles at $800, instead of the actual $15 value. Hotz was then charged for a felony and posted $1,500 bail. Meh! Despite Arrest, George Hotz made it to SXSW conference. Here is the Audio.

Here’s the complete report:

Hotz was on his way to give a talk at SXSW, when he had to pass through a border patrol checkpoint in Sierra Blanca. According to a source familiar with the case, Department of Homeland Security officers brought drug dogs to each car. When the dogs barked, Hotz (and his passengers) were pulled over for more searching.

Hotz has a medical marijuana license inCalifornia, where he lives, our source says. In the car’s glove box, Hotz apparently had 1/4 oz. of marijuana and chocolate edibles equivalent to less than 1/8 oz. of the drug.

The border agents allegedly said they would turn Hotz over to the local sheriff and he would get a citation. Not a big deal, right? But our source explains the local sheriff took the whole weight of the chocolate as the proper measure (as if the candy were made entirely of pot). Law enforcement then valued the “special”chocolate truffles at $800, instead of the $15 our source says Hotz paid for it.

An $800 pot truffle? Man, that would put you in a coma. A real coma, not a normal stoney-baloney zonk-out.

Hotz was booked for a felony and posted $1,500 bail.

Geohot came into limelight when he unlocked the iPhone back in 2008 and in subsequent years continued applying his craft to Apple’s smartphone by releasing many iOS jailbreak tools like purplera1n, Limera1n (bootrom exploit) and Blacksn0w. He then made headlines after being the target of a lawsuit from Sony after he allegedly hacked the PlayStation 3, enabling users to run custom packages on the device. After a short court battle, the parties settled the case. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, however.

Hotz was hired by Facebook last summer to presumably work on the social media mogul’s security team. But most recently, he reportedly quit his job at Facebook to pursue his journey into hacking. Few months back he was spotted at a hackathon, which is funded by pop singer Lady Gaga.