True the Vote, the Texas-based non-profit that’s devoted itself to denying the validity of the 2020 election and spreading conspiracy theories about voter fraud, was instantly concerned within the arrest of the CEO of a small election software program firm earlier this month. A criticism from Gregg Phillips, a True the Vote board member, first spurred the LA County District Attorney’s workplace to research the corporate, Konnech.

The DA’s workplace initially claimed that True the Vote and Phillips performed no function in its investigation, nonetheless the workplace recanted that declare in an e mail to Gizmodo despatched on Thursday. From LA County District Attorney’s workplace spokesperson, Matthew Krasnowski:

Our Public Integrity Division (PID) routinely accepts complaints from the general public. Often instances, these complaints are made by political opponents of the accused. With that in thoughts, if a criminal offense is alleged we’ve got a accountability to conduct an impartial investigation. Greg Phillips’ [sic] report back to PID was step one in a radical impartial and nonetheless ongoing investigation which finally led to the arrest and charging of Mr. Yu. We initially indicated that Mr. Phillips performed no function within the investigation. While we carried out an impartial investigation other than Greg Philips [sic], his report back to us did in reality lead to us initiating our investigation.

As a results of the continuing investigation, Konnech CEO Eugene Yu was arrested earlier this month. He has been charged with two felonies: conspiracy to commit a criminal offense and grand theft by embezzlement of public funds, based on a court docket submitting from LA County prosecutors, shared with Gizmodo on Thursday.

Konnech, which relies in Michigan and has about 20 staff, signed a contract with LA County in 2019 to supply the municipality with some election staffing, scheduling, and administration companies by its PollChief software program. As part of that contract, the corporate agreed that solely “staff who are based in the United States and are citizens or lawful permanent residents of the United States shall have access to any County data, including personally identifiable information.”

But, in violation of that contract clause, some details about ballot employees was despatched to third-party contractors based mostly in China, who had been serving to to troubleshoot and develop PollChief, based on the prosecutor’s submitting. The doc cites inner firm communications obtained through search warrant earlier in October. For occasion, an e mail from challenge supervisor Luis Nabergoi despatched the identical day of Yu’s arrest, which mentioned Konnech was “moving to a new stage in the company maturity and we need to ensure the security privacy and confidentiality or [sic] our client data.”

Both of the fees in opposition to Yu stem from the allegations of contract violation: Conspiracy as a result of the CEO allegedly knew in regards to the contract breach, and embezzlement as a result of the corporate accepted cash from the county beneath false pretenses (i.e. that it might not break the contract). Konnech didn’t instantly reply to Gizmodo’s request for remark.

At one level, the corporate had 32 shoppers in North America, based on its website, together with the City of Detroit and Dekalb County, Georgia. Since Yu’s arrest, Detroit and two counties have ended their contracts with Konnech. However, Dekalb and LA counties have opted to maintain their contracts going by the upcoming midterm elections, based on a report from The New York Times.

Critically, even when ballot employee knowledge was shared with two sub-contractors in China, there isn’t any proof of any identification theft ensuing from that. Further, whether or not or not election employee data was shared has no bearing on election outcomes, vote totals, or anything which might relate to True the Vote’s unfounded, voter fraud conspiracy theories.

True the Vote has proudly taken credit for its roll in Yu’s arrest. And although election deniers are more likely to maintain onto the case in opposition to Konnech as proof of their views, the allegations in opposition to the corporate and its CEO have nothing to do with election outcomes.

And with out the dogged targeting of Konnech by True the Vote, it’s unclear if the difficulty of knowledge administration would’ve resulted in such authorized proceedings in any respect. As the NYT identified, “it is rare for an executive to face criminal charges for potentially mishandling data.”

Yu is scheduled to be arraigned Friday. If convicted of the 2 felony fees, the chief may face a complete of eight years in jail.