A Democratic candidate running for Orange County assessor denied allegations that she forced two campaign staffers to touch her breasts, claims that have already cost her the local party's endorsement and drawn a recommendation from the party chair that she retain a criminal lawyer.
Janet Keo Conklin, a La Palma council member and real estate agent seeking to unseat Republican incumbent Claude Parrish, pushed back against the accusations after the New York Post reported on a broader pattern of misconduct claims involving her campaign operation. The allegations, first aired by LAist, include both the physical harassment accusations and questions about how Conklin's campaign spent nearly all of the $61,000 it raised since last year.
The former staffers told LAist that Conklin informed them "she has no feeling in her nipples" and then placed their hands on her chest, telling them to "give it a squeeze." One staffer recounted the aftermath plainly:
"We took our hands off because we were just in shock."
Conklin denied wrongdoing. Her political consultant, Michael Trujillo, called the allegations a coordinated smear by disgruntled ex-employees who were let go for poor performance. But the fallout has been swift, and it extends well beyond one uncomfortable encounter.
The Democratic Party of Orange County pulled its endorsement of Conklin earlier this year after learning of the allegations. Florice Hoffman, an attorney who chairs the local party, told LAist she first learned of the issues in February and moved quickly to rescind the backing.
Hoffman's advice to Conklin was blunt. As she reportedly told the candidate directly:
"Our advice is you need to get a lawyer, a criminal lawyer."
Conklin appeared unbothered by the endorsement loss, at least publicly. She told LAist: "Endorsements come and go. If it doesn't come with money, so what?"
That kind of shrug-it-off posture may play well with a base that prizes defiance. But when your own party chair is telling you to lawyer up, and not the civil kind, the political math changes fast. The race pits Conklin against Parrish for the county office that manages property tax assessments, a down-ballot contest now attracting attention for all the wrong reasons.
The harassment claims are not the only problem dogging Conklin's campaign. Former staffers also alleged that campaign funds were misused on personal expenses. As of mid-April, the campaign had burned through almost all of the $61,000 it had raised since last year, a pace that raised eyebrows among those who worked inside the operation.
After the former staffers left, they alleged that campaign cash was paid out to Conklin's daughter, Natalie Khay, and a friend, Shauna Harris. The exact amounts were not disclosed in available reporting. Former staffers also alleged that Conklin asked about writing off living arrangements as a campaign expense.
The pattern is familiar enough in local politics: a campaign that treats donor money as a personal slush fund, then circles the wagons when anyone asks questions. It is the kind of conduct that erodes trust in the democratic process at every level, and it is hardly limited to one party, though Democrats have faced a growing wave of internal challenges as voters lose patience with candidates who cannot keep their own houses in order.
Trujillo, Conklin's consultant, did not limit his defense to denying the harassment allegations. He went after the campaign's former treasurer, Cine Ivery, by name, and he went after the local party leadership that pulled the endorsement.
Trujillo told the Post that shortly after joining Conklin's operation, he recommended firing Ivery:
"Shortly after being brought on by Janet, I recommended she fire this treasurer who has a troubling history getting it wrong, not knowing the rules and, quite honestly, just being plain dumb."
Ivery's record does carry a mark. The California Fair Political Practices Commission named her in a 2024 enforcement decision. The state's political watchdog found that former Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva's 2018 campaign had laundered contributions, a matter in which Ivery was involved. She did not respond to a request for comment.
Trujillo also dismissed the campaign-spending controversy as overblown, framing it around a single restaurant receipt. His frustration was not subtle:
"This entire episode that the LAist story missed, all of these receipts, is primarily about a dinner at Sizzler. F, ing Sizzler! I swear to god, what is wrong with the media? It's about Sizzler. This is crazy."
Whether a Sizzler dinner receipt accounts for the bulk of the spending questions remains unclear. The campaign burned through $61,000 in roughly a year. Trujillo's explanation covers one meal. The gap between those two figures is wide enough to drive a county assessor's truck through.
Perhaps the most revealing part of the fallout is where Trujillo directed his anger next, not at the accusers, but at his own party's leadership. He took direct aim at Hoffman for speaking publicly and vowed political consequences.
"She should have never been on the record. What she said was outrageous and unbecoming of any party chair of the 58 counties in California. And she will be reprimanded."
He went further, announcing a long-term plan to oust the party's local leadership entirely:
"I now know what my assignment is in 2028, it's to run a slate of Orange County delegates to fire the executive director of the Democratic Party."
That response tells you something about the incentives at work. When a party official warns a candidate to get a criminal lawyer, and the candidate's consultant responds by threatening to purge the party apparatus, the priority is not accountability. It is self-preservation. The instinct is not to address the allegations but to punish anyone who took them seriously.
It is the same pattern that plays out in Democratic circles from Minnesota to California, when the party's own watchdogs raise alarms, the reflex is to shoot the messenger rather than fix the problem.
County assessor races rarely make national headlines. They are the unglamorous machinery of local government, the office that determines property tax valuations, the kind of work that matters most to homeowners and small businesses who never think about it until something goes wrong.
But the Conklin saga illustrates a broader dysfunction. Here is a candidate whose own party pulled its endorsement. Whose own party chair told her to hire a criminal defense attorney. Whose former staffers allege both physical misconduct and financial mismanagement. And whose consultant's response is to threaten a hostile takeover of the local party structure.
The voters of Orange County deserve better than this, and so do the staffers who say they were subjected to conduct that left them "in shock." Campaign workers, especially at the local level, are often young, underpaid, and eager to build a career in public service. They should not have to wonder whether speaking up about misconduct will be dismissed as a "smear campaign" orchestrated by disgruntled employees.
Conklin's denial is on the record. So are the staffers' accounts. The FPPC's enforcement history regarding her former treasurer is a matter of public record. And the campaign's financial disclosures, showing nearly $61,000 raised and almost entirely spent, are available for anyone willing to look.
Scandals involving misconduct allegations and whistleblower-driven revelations have ended careers at far higher levels of government. Whether this one follows that trajectory depends on whether Orange County voters and party officials treat the allegations with the seriousness they warrant, or whether Trujillo's threat to purge dissenting voices succeeds in silencing the people who raised them.
The Democratic Party's persistent recruitment and vetting failures are not just a national problem. They reach all the way down to the county level, where the consequences land on the people least equipped to fight back.
When a party cannot police its own candidates for county assessor, it has no business lecturing anyone else about standards of conduct.
