Activist's Blackberry Stolen From His Bedside at UCSF Medical Center at Mount Zion Hospital Room -- Authorities Suspect Employee

Photo | Bonnie Powell / UC Berkeley

Gideon Sofer

 On the evening of May 10, Gideon Sofer lay in a UCSF Medical Center Mount Zion hospital bed. A 23-year-old U.C. Berkeley graduate, noted advocate for Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), and stamp collector, Sofer recently created his own IBD stamp. (As seen on Sofer's Web site, the stamp is waiting to be passed in Congress, and pictures a confidant figure walking atop the slogan, "Stamp out IBD.")

Sofer's been featured in a story on NPR and written an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. The point is, he's not the kind of guy you want to steal from.

When Sofer fell asleep that night in the hospital, his Blackberry was beside him on his bed tray, he told the San Francisco Police Department. When he awoke around 9 a.m. the next morning, it was gone. Sofer then thoroughly searched his room, but found no Blackberry.

Eventually, he contacted T-Mobile to request a call history, and found out that his phone had been calling a number from Stockton that he didn't recognize. Then, on May 13, he received an image of a young boy he did not know at his e-mail address. (He had set up his Blackberry account to send copies of all his sent messages to his e-mail).

A police search warrant reveals that when the UCSF police department conducted a reverse phone directory search on the Stockton number, it came up with a relatively common female name. The police discovered, however, that there are three women of that name who work for UCSF -- and one of them was working as a nurse on the same floor where Sofer slept on the night his Blackberry disappeared.

The investigation is ongoing.