Teen sues Apple for $1 billion, says tech giant led to his wrongful arrest

An 18-year-old is suing Apple for $1 billion after the company allegedly led to his wrongful arrest.

What are the details?

Ousmane Bah from New York said that his interim learner's permit was lost or stolen. In the lawsuit, he claims that a thief used this ID at an Apple store location before he robbed it. The thief then went on to rob a number of Apple stores in at least four different states. The perpetrator's face, which was not Bah's, was caught on surveillance camera, but his name was listed as Bah presumably from the ID, which did not include a picture.

Apple, however, has told the BBC that it does not have facial recognition technology in those stores.

Delaware, Massachusetts, and New York have all since dropped their criminal cases against Bah. In the Massachusetts case, he had been able to prove that at the time an Apple store in Boston had $1,200 in merchandise stolen, he was attending his senior prom in New York City. He said he has never visited Boston in his life. He said that the first time he heard about the robbery in Boston was when he got a court summons in the mail.

In the case of a robbery in Manhattan, the lawsuit claims that Bah was arrested but then later released when police determined that he was not the culprit caught on surveillance video.

New Jersey still has a criminal case open against Bah for a robbery at an Apple store there.

What else?

According to the lawsuit, Bah was "was forced to respond to multiple false allegations which led to severe stress and hardship in his life, and also significant damage to his positive reputation that he had put so much effort into upholding."

Apple, Bah alleges, "wrongfully and baselessly damaged" his reputation. He also said that being forced to travel to multiple states to face charges for a crime he didn't commit has hurt his attendance at college.