Eric Neff’s term in the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office ended after he was put on leave until 2022 due to allegations of misconduct in the prosecution of the CEO of Konnech, a software company that election riggers say was in trouble with the Chinese government.
Now, three years later, Neff serves as one of the Trump administration’s top election watchers.
Late last year, his name began to appear in the lawsuits filed by the US Department of Justice’s Human Rights Division, listed as a “deputy officer” in the voting section.
Neff’s appointment, first reported by Mama Jones, has prompted a review of his work at the LA County district attorney’s office.
The Times interviewed several of Neff’s colleagues, who disclosed new details about the misconduct claims that emerged in the Konnech case, and said they were shocked that someone with no knowledge of federal election law had been appointed to the top job.
Neff led the 2022 investigation of Konnech, a small Michigan company whose software is used by election officials in several major cities. In criminal complaint, Neff accused the company’s CEO, Eugene Yu, of fraud and embezzlement, accusing the company of storing employee voting information on a server based in China, in violation of its contract with the LA County registrar’s office.
Six weeks after the complaint was filed, prosecutors dropped the case and began an investigation into “irregularities” and bias in the way evidence against Konnech was presented, the DA’s office said in a 2022 statement.
The district paid Konnech $5 million and joined the motion to find Yu not guilty. as part of a formal agreement.
The internal investigation centered on allegations that Neff misled the district attorney’s office about the role of dissidents in his investigation, according to two officials with direct knowledge of the case who asked not to be identified because they are not authorized to discuss it publicly.
Neff also withheld information about possible bias in the case, according to the two officials.
In a civil lawsuit filed last year, Neff said an internal review by the DA’s office cleared him of wrongdoing. Two officials familiar with the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity disputed Neff’s claims about the results.
Spokesperson for Dist. He said. Nathan Hochman declined to comment or provide the results of the Neff investigation, which officials said was conducted by an outside law firm that issued a report on the case. Neff’s attorney also did not provide a copy of the report.
A spokesman for the Department of Justice declined to comment.
Neff’s attorney, Tom Yu — no relation to the Konnech CEO — said his client had no obligation to provide background information about the origins of the case to grand jurors.
Neff’s appointment comes as President Trump continues to remake the DOJ in his own image by appointing political loyalists with no criminal law background as U.S. attorneys in New Jersey and Virginia and seeking prosecution of his political enemies, such as former FBI Director James Comey.
Trump has never retracted his false claim that he won the 2020 election.
Where LA County Dist. He said. George Gascón announced the charges against Konnech in 2020, Trump said that the progressive prosecutor will be “a National Hero of the Right if he comes to the end of this aspect of Voting fraud.”
The Konnech case focused on contract fraud, not voter fraud or vote rigging. Six weeks after charges were filed, the case collapsed.
The DA’s office cited Neff’s overreliance on evidence released by True the Vote, a group that pushed the Chinese government’s baseless conspiracy theories about Konnech and appeared in a film that spread allegations of rigging the 2020 presidential election.
Gascón initially denied that True the Vote was involved in the case, but weeks later, a spokesperson for the DA’s office said that a report from the group’s founder, Gregg Phillips, was what prompted the prosecution. Phillips testified in court in July 2022 that it was Neff who first contacted him about Konnech.
The two officials who spoke to The Times said Neff withheld the role of True the Vote from the DA’s office staff, including Gascón, when he presented the case.
Gascón declined an interview request, noting that he was subpoenaed in the pending Neff case, which is scheduled to go to trial in early 2026.
Neff’s lawyer stressed that the case against Konnech is strong.
“He was released because Trump tweeted the statement ‘Go George Go’,” said the lawyer. “That’s why Eugene Yu was released. Because Gascón was afraid he would lose votes.”
Calls and emails to Eugene Yu’s former attorney were not returned.
In his lawsuit, Neff said he had evidence that “Konnech used third-party contractors based in China and failed to comply with security procedures” to protect LA County poll worker information. The evidence was not entered as an exhibit at trial.
A DOJ spokesman declined to describe Neff’s activities. His name appears in a number of lawsuits filed in recent months against counties that have refused to hand over voter registration lists to the Trump administration.
Neff was also involved in a lawsuit filed with the Fulton County Clerk’s office in Georgia seeking records related to the 2020 election, records show.
“We will not allow states to jeopardize the integrity and effectiveness of elections by refusing to comply with our electoral laws,” Asst. He said. Gen. Harmeet Dhillon, a California conservationist who now leads the civil rights division, in a recent statement. “If the states don’t do their duty to protect the integrity of the vote, we will.”
Dhillon declined to comment through a DOJ spokesman.
The voting division “enforces the civil provisions of federal laws that protect the right to vote, including the Voting Rights Act,” according to the DOJ website.
It does not appear that Neff has a history of working on cases related to federal election law. He became an LA County prosecutor in 2013 and spent years handling local criminal cases out of the Pomona courthouse. He was promoted to the Public Integrity Division, which investigates corruption, in 2020, according to his case.
While there, he handled only two election-related cases. One was the Konnech case. The other is about alleged election fraud against a Compton city council member.
In August 2021, Isaac Galvan, a Democrat, was charged with conspiracy to commit election fraud after allegations that he worked to direct voters from outside his congressional district to vote for him. Galvan won the race by just one vote, however he was removed from the office when the judge determined at least four incorrect votes had been cast.
Galvan’s criminal case is pending; he recently pleaded guilty to another charge of corruption and bribery in federal court. A spokesman for the US attorney’s office in Los Angeles said there is no conflict between the DA election fraud case and the bribery case against Galvan. Federal prosecutors are not reviewing the Konnech case, a spokesman said.
Court filings show Neff was involved in the Galvan LA County case, but the prosecution was led by a senior attorney.
Justin Levitt, a constitutional law professor at Loyola Law School who worked in the civil rights division during the Obama administration, said division chiefs often have years of experience in the legal field they must oversee.
“The biggest problem with someone with Neff’s record is a giant who raises a red flag involving a prosecution based on unreliable evidence,” Levitt said. “That’s not something a prosecutor should do.”
Neff’s lawyer, Yu, scoffed at the idea that his client did not know enough about his new role in the Trump administration, or that he was appointed because of his involvement in the Konnech case.
“Eric got the job because he’s qualified for the job, he didn’t get it because of any reason, he got it because he’s a good lawyer,” said Yu. “I think the Department of Justice is very fortunate to have Eric.”
Times Staff Writer Seema Mehta contributed to this report.
