FBI requests Google help after failing to unlock pimp’s cellphone

Here’s one for the books. A US judge has approved request from the FBI that Google give up information on a pimp’s Android phone — starting with how to get past the pattern screen lock.

According to The Verge, the device belongs to one Dante Dears, who was arrested in 2005 for pimping out teenage prostitutes and beating a 15-year-old girl.

Following his 2011 release, Dears was reportedly still directing prostitutes running using the phone in question.

The FBI then seized the phone in an attempt to get information from it. The pattern lock was, however, had the agents tasked with retrieving the information completely stymied. They managed to enter the incorrect pattern enough times to completely lock down the phone.

It was at this point that they decided to get a warrant requesting that Google give them assistance in accessing information it might have on the phone, including subscription billing, GPS data, credit card numbers, and “verbal and / or written instructions for overriding the ‘pattern lock.'”

Dears is a founding member of the “Pimp Hoes Daily” (PhD) gang, an organisation which the court filing calls PhD “a criminal street gang” operating from Los Angeles, California.

If you’re wondering why the FBI didn’t just get Dears to unlock the phone himself, they apparently tried, but he refused to cooperate.