Eric Neff's tenure in the Los Angeles County district attorney's office ended after he was placed on administrative leave in 2022 over allegations of misconduct in the prosecution of the CEO of Konnech, a software company that election conspiracy theorists say was enslaved by the Chinese government.
Now, three years later, Neff serves as one of the Trump administration's top election observers.
Late last year, his name began appearing in lawsuits filed by the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice, appearing as “acting head” of the voting section.
Neff's quote, First reported by Mother Jones, has prompted renewed scrutiny of his work at the Los Angeles County district attorney's office.
The Times interviewed several of Neff's former colleagues, who revealed new details about the misconduct allegations that emerged from the Konnech case, and said they were alarmed that someone with almost no experience in federal election law was appointed to a high-level position.
Neff led the 2022 investigation into Konnech, a small Michigan company whose software is used by election officials in several major cities. In a criminal complaint, Neff accused the company's CEO, Eugene Yu, of fraud and embezzlement, alleging that the company stored poll worker information on a server based in China, a violation of its contract with the Los Angeles County Recorder's Office.
Six weeks after a complaint was filed, prosecutors dropped the case and launched an investigation into “irregularities” and bias in the way evidence was presented against Konnech, the district attorney's office said in a 2022 statement.
The county paid Konnech $5 million and joined a motion to find Yu factually innocent. as part of a legal agreement.
The internal investigation centered on allegations that Neff misled supervisors in the district attorney's office about the role of election deniers in his investigation, according to two officials with direct knowledge of the case who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.
Neff also allegedly withheld information about possible bias in the case from the grand jury, according to the two officials.
In a civil lawsuit filed last year, Neff said an internal review by the district attorney's office cleared him of wrongdoing. The two officials familiar with the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity disputed Neff's characterization of the findings.
A spokesperson for the Dist. Lawyer. Nathan Hochman declined to comment or provide the results of the investigation into Neff, which officials said was conducted by an outside law firm that produced a report on the case. Neff's attorney also did not provide a copy of the report.
A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.
Neff's attorney, Tom Yu, who is not related to Konnech's chief executive, said his client had no obligation to provide information about the origins of the case to the grand jury.
Neff's appointment comes as President Trump continues to remake the Justice Department in his own image by appointing political loyalists with no criminal law experience as U.S. attorneys in New Jersey and Virginia and seeking to prosecute his political enemies, such as former FBI Director James Comey.
Trump has never retracted his false claim that he won the 2020 election.
When then-Los Angeles County Dist. Lawyer. George Gascón announced the charges against Konnech in 2020, Trump said the progressive prosecutor would become a “national hero on the right if he got to the bottom of this aspect of election fraud.”
The Konnech case focused on contract fraud, not electoral fraud or vote manipulation. Six weeks after charges were filed, the case fell apart.
The district attorney's office cited Neff's overreliance on evidence provided by True the Vote, the group that fueled baseless Chinese government conspiracies about Konnech and also appeared in a film that spread claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
Gascón initially denied that True the Vote was involved in the case, but weeks later, a spokesperson for the district attorney's office said a report from the group's co-founder, Gregg Phillips, prompted the indictment. 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 concealed True the Vote's role from senior staff in the district attorney's office, including Gascón, when bringing the case.
Gascón declined an interview request and noted that his name appears in Neff's pending lawsuit, which is scheduled for trial in early 2026.
Neff's lawyer insisted the case against Konnech was strong.
“He was fired because Trump tweeted a statement of 'Come on, George, come on,'” the lawyer said. “That's why Eugene Yu was fired. Because Gascón was so afraid of losing votes.”
Calls and emails to a lawyer who previously represented Eugene Yu were not returned.
In his lawsuit, Neff claimed he had evidence that “Konnech used third-party contractors based in China and failed to comply with security procedures” to protect the data of Los Angeles County election workers. The evidence was not attached as evidence in the complaint.
A Justice Department spokesperson declined to describe Neff's job duties. His name appears in a series of lawsuits filed in recent months against states that have refused to turn over voter registration lists to the Trump administration.
Neff is also involved in a lawsuit filed against 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 federal election laws,” the aide said. Lawyer. Gen. Harmeet Dhillon, the California conservative who now heads the civil rights division, said in a recent statement. “If states fail in their duty to protect the integrity of the ballot, we will.”
Dhillon declined to comment through a Justice Department spokesperson.
The voting section “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 experience working on cases involving federal election law. He first became a Los Angeles County prosecutor in 2013 and spent years handling local crime cases from the Pomona courthouse. He was promoted and reassigned to the Public Integrity Division, which investigates corruption issues, in 2020, according to his lawsuit.
While there, he handled only two election-related processes. One was the Konnech case. The other involved allegations of voter fraud against a Compton City Council member.
In August 2021, Isaac Galván, a Democrat, was charged with conspiring to commit voter fraud after he allegedly worked to direct voters outside his municipal district to vote for him. Galván won the race by only one vote, but was kicked out of office when a judge determined that at least four improper votes had been cast.
Galván's criminal case is still pending; He recently pleaded guilty to charges in a separate corruption and bribery case in federal court. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles said there was no overlap between the district attorney's election tampering case and the bribery case against Galván. Federal prosecutors are not reviewing the Konnech case, the spokesman said.
Court documents show Neff was involved in Galvan's case in Los Angeles County, 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 section chiefs typically have decades of experience in the area of law they are required to oversee.
“The biggest problem with someone with Neff's record is the gigantic red flag of bringing forward a process based on unreliable evidence,” Levitt said. “That's not something any prosecutor should do.”
Neff's lawyer, Yu, scoffed at the idea that his client didn't have enough experience for his new role in the Trump administration, or that he was selected because of his involvement in the Konnech case.
“Eric got the job because he's qualified to get it. He didn't get the job for any other reason. He got the job because he's an excellent advocate,” Yu said. “I think the Department of Justice is very fortunate to have Eric.”
Times staff writer Seema Mehta contributed to this report.
