(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) George Soros-backed Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon dismissed criminal charges against Eugene Yu, the CEO of Michigan-based election software company Konnech, the Federalist reported.
Yu and Konnech were initially under investigation for the company’s failure to securely maintain election data—including the personal details supplied by some 2 million poll workers in the 2020 election.
Konnech, which is headquartered in East Lansing—Michigan’s capital city—“allegedly violated its contract by storing critical information that the workers provided on servers in China” according to Gascon.
The original criminal charges had led to Yu’s arrest in Meridian Township, Michigan, and his extradition to Los Angeles at the request of Gascon, because Los Angeles County had used PollChief, Konnech’s poll worker management software.
The criminal complaint stated that during a government search of Konnech’s headquarters, officials had discovered that employees had “sent personal identifying information of Los Angeles County election workers to third-party software developers who assisted with the creating and fixing [of] Konnech’s internal ‘PollChief’ software.”
The company had also given all employees of Chinese contractors working on PollChief “superadministrative privileges,” it noted.
“We intend to hold all those responsible for this breach accountable,” Gascon said after filing the charges in October 2022.
But, in a bizarre maneuver, Gascon dropped the charges against Yu shortly thereafter and ordered lead prosecutor Eric Neff to dismiss the case.
Neff subsequently spoke out, saying he considered the maneuver to be “a politically based dismissal not in furtherance of justice.”
He added that “a prosecutor cannot use political gains as a basis for dismissing a prosecution of a criminal matter.”
Neff was put on leave two days later, on Nov. 16, 2022, pending an “internal investigation.”
It was not until March 20, 2024, however, that he was reinstated after being informed that the investigation of him had been completed and no disciplinary action would be taken.
Nonetheless, Neff said in retaliation he was transferred from his position prosecuting political corruption to the “much less desireable assignment of Welfare Fraud Unit.”
On Wednesday, Neff published an internal complaint against the DA—a complaint that could eventuate in a lawsuit.
The bombshell complaint sheds light on the behind-the-scenes political wranglings in the deeply suspicious case, which some suspect may be tied to Chinese election meddling.
Neff argued that investigators had “recovered several explosive pieces of evidence in the form of electronic communications as well as one cooperating witness—an employee with knowledge of the company’s facially inadequate practices and procedures,” and still the charges were dropped.
Ultimately, some have suggested, Gascon dropped the charges when he realized that he had inadvertently gained the approval of former President Donald Trump, who wrote “Go, George, Go!” in support of him on Oct. 6, 2022, two days after Yu’s arrest.
“Go, George, Go!” https://t.co/8brO42lhdf pic.twitter.com/3SshRvGaIS
— GildaGold (@GildagoldAmom) October 10, 2022
“From this point onward, despite the evidence of the criminal case against Mr. Yu, DA Gascon and President Trump are connected which is devastating to DA Gascon’s political career,” Neff said in his complaint.
In a bit of serendipitous timing, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling Wednesday that lowered the bar for claimants to sue for discriminatory job transfers—although it is unclear whether Neff’s allegations of a politically motivated persecution would meet the legal standard.
