Los Angeles County to pay US$5 million settlement over arrest of election software firm CEO Eugene Yu

Payout settles civil rights lawsuit brought by Eugene Yu, CEO of Michigan software company Konnech Corp

Yu and firm were the focus of a bungled 2022 prosecution based largely on the word of conspiracy theorists

Reading Time:2 minutes

A voter prepares their ballot at a polling station in Los Angeles, California, on November 1, 2022. File photo: AFP

Published: 3:36pm, 24 Jan 2024Updated: 4:59pm, 24 Jan 2024

Los Angeles County on Tuesday agreed to pay US$5 million to the founder and CEO of a software company who was briefly accused of stealing data on county poll workers in a case he said was pushed by conspiracy theorists.

The Board of Supervisors voted without public discussion to approve the settlement of a lawsuit filed by Eugene Yu of Michigan-based Konnech Corp over his 2022 arrest and prosecution, KNBC-TV reported.

County lawyers had urged approval of the settlement in a letter to the board, the station said.

Konnech is a small company based in East Lansing, Michigan. In 2020, it won a five-year, US$2.9 million contract with LA County for software to track election worker schedules, training, payroll and communications.

Eugene Yu sued Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon (pictured). Photo: TNS

Yu was arrested in Michigan in October 2022 and computer hard drives were seized. The LA County District Attorney’s Office alleged that Konnech had violated its contract requirement to keep data in the United States and improperly used servers in China to store information on hundreds of county poll workers.