A lead prosecutor on a case involving the CEO of an election software company has filed a government tort complaint against Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón for allegedly dismissing criminal charges improperly against the company executive for political purposes.
The prosecution of the head of an election software company used by election offices across the country that began in October 2022 was ended about a month later because of the Los Angeles County district attorney's concerns about his political image, according to the lead prosecutor's complaint against the DA. On Wednesday, Eric Neff, a prosecutor in the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, filed a lawsuit against the DA for allegedly improperly dismissing criminal charges against Eugene Yu, the founder and CEO of the Michigan-based election software company Konnech.
Yu was arrested in October 2022 on charges of grand theft and embezzlement of more than $100,000 when his company stored thousands of Los Angeles County election workers' personal information on the server based in China, in alleged violation of Konnech's $2.9 million, five-year contract with the county.
The software is designed to manage election-worker payroll, assignments, and communications, and has been used in Wayne County, DeKalb County, Ga., and Fairfax County, Va. The charging document, filed in the Superior Court of the State of California for the County of Los Angeles, claimed that a project manager in August "Wrote that any employee for Chinese contractors working on PollChief software had 'superadministration' privileges for all PollChief clients."
The felony complaint also alleged that Konnech employees "Sent personal identifying information of Los Angeles County election workers to third-party software developers who assisted with creating and fixing" the company's PollChief software.
In November 2022, the DA dropped the criminal charges against Yu, citing concerns about both the "Pace of the investigation" and "Potential bias in the presentation" of the charges.
Yu's attorney, Dean Z. Pamphilis told NBCLA in a statement following the settlement, "The Los Angeles DA's arrest of Mr. Yu based on utterly false charges - charges the DA dropped 5 weeks later - and the resulting publicity cost Mr. Yu his life savings and Konnech over 50 percent of its customers."
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