I wrote about this back in October 2022, when the charges were filed, and then in November 2022, when they were dropped; now here’s this update (NBC Los Angeles [Eric Leonard]):
Los Angeles County will pay [Eugene Yu,] the owner of Michigan-based election management software company[, Konnech,] $5 million to settle a lawsuit that alleged the LA County District Attorney’s Office violated his rights when he was arrested and charged in 2022 with a criminal case that was dropped 37 days later.
“Plaintiffs alleged Mr. Yu’s arrest and the seizure of Konnech’s property was without probable cause and a violation of Mr. Yu’s civil rights causing damage to Konnech’s business and Mr. Yu’s reputation,” county lawyers wrote to the Board of Supervisors in a letter urging approval of the settlement….
LA District Attorney George Gascón announced at a news conference [in Oct. 2022] that Yu and his firm had criminally violated the terms of the company’s $2.6 million contract with LA County, under which the company provided election logistics software to voting officials.
Gascón accused Yu and the company of conspiracy and embezzlement, by allegedly storing some data about poll workers on servers in China, rather than on servers in the U.S., but specified that there was no evidence voting or voter data had been stored offshore….
For Konnech and Yu’s complaint, see here. My first reaction, I regret to say, was that the prosecutors were likely to have solid evidence behind their charges, in part because the prosecution was contrary to what one might have politically expected from Gascón, and in part because in my experience prosecutors usually (though not always) do have solid evidence. But in this instance it appears that the prosecutors erred; I’d love to know more about how all this came about.
The post L.A. County Paying $5M to Settle Case Alleging Constitutional Violations in Prosecution of Election Management Company's Owner appeared first on Reason.com.
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