Steven Donziger Under House Arrest After Suing Chevron

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Steven Donziger Under House Arrest After Suing Chevron

Postby admin » Tue Mar 16, 2021 11:04 pm

U.S. Lawyer Steven Donziger Speaks from House Arrest in NYC After Suing Chevron for Amazon Oil Spills
by Amy Goodman
Democracy Now!
March 15, 2021
https://www.democracynow.org/2021/3/15/ ... st_chevron

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Decades of reckless oil drilling by Chevron have destroyed 1,700 square miles of land in the Ecuadorian Amazon, but the company has refused to pay for the damage or clean up the land despite losing a lawsuit 10 years ago, when Ecuador’s Supreme Court ordered the oil giant to pay $18 billion on behalf of 30,000 Amazonian Indigenous people. Instead of cleaning up the damage, Chevron has spent the past decade waging an unprecedented legal battle to avoid paying for the environmental destruction, while also trying to take down the environmental lawyer Steven Donziger, who helped bring the landmark case. Donziger, who has been on house arrest for nearly 600 days, says Chevron’s legal attacks on him are meant to silence critics and stop other lawsuits against the company for environmental damage. “Chevron and its allies have used the judiciary to try to attack the very idea of corporate accountability and environmental justice work that leads to significant judgments,” Donziger says. We also speak with Paul Paz y Miño, associate director at Amazon Watch, who says the new attorney general should conduct a review of the case and the dubious grounds for Donziger’s house arrest. “The real thing that’s going on here is Chevron is attempting to literally criminalize a human rights lawyer who beat them,” Paz y Miño says.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The Quarantine Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

We turn now to what’s been described as the Amazon’s Chernobyl — 1,700 square miles of land in the Ecuadorian Amazon devastated by decades of reckless oil drilling. Ten years ago, Ecuador’s Supreme Court ordered Chevron to pay $18 billion for dumping over 70 billion liters of oil and toxic waste into the Amazon. The ruling came in a lawsuit brought on behalf of 30,000 Amazonian Indigenous people who had been suffering since the mid-’60s, when Texaco began drilling on their ancestral land. Chevron bought Texaco in 2000.

The landmark ruling was seen as a major victory for the environment and corporate accountability. But Chevron refused to pay or clean up the land. Amazon Watch has spent years documenting the environmental destruction in Ecuador. This is part of a short video produced by the group and narrated by the actor Peter Coyote.

PETER COYOTE: Today, in an Amazon rainforest region of northeastern Ecuador called the Oriente, tens of thousands of men, women and children are surrounded on all sides by widespread oil contamination, the soil polluted, the water poisoned. Over nearly 25 years in Ecuador, American oil giant Chevron, in the form of its predecessor company Texaco, engaged in reckless pump-and-dump oil operations that ravaged thousands of square miles of once-pristine Amazon rainforest. To increase its profit margin by a few dollars per barrel of oil, the company cut corners and used a populated rainforest ecosystem as its toxic dumping grounds. The result? Tens of thousands of people who live in what was once a paradise on Earth now face a horrific epidemic of cancer, birth defects, miscarriages and other oil-related illness. And the Indigenous peoples, who have lived off the bounty of the rainforest for countless generations, now struggle for survival.

AMY GOODMAN: Instead of cleaning up the Ecuadorian Amazon, Chevron has spent the past decade waging an unprecedented legal battle to avoid paying for the environmental damage, while also trying to take down the environmental lawyer Steven Donziger, who helped bring the landmark case. With the help of dozens of law firms, Chevron has ended Donziger’s legal career. He’s been disbarred. His bank accounts have been frozen. He has been forced to surrender his passport. Steve Donziger has also been under house arrest for nearly 600 days, after a federal judge drafted criminal [contempt] charges against him for refusing to turn over his cellphone and computer. In an unusual legal twist, the judge appointed a private law firm with ties to Chevron to prosecute Donziger, after federal prosecutors declined to bring charges.

Many of his supporters see Donziger as a corporate political prisoner. His case is attracting growing attention with the legal world, as well as among environmentalists and human rights activists. Fifty-five Nobel laureates, including 10 recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize, have called for an end to the judicial attacks on Donziger. A coalition of groups, including Amnesty International, Amazon Watch, the National Lawyers Guild and others, recently wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland asking him to investigate what they describe as, quote, “disturbing legal attacks” on Donziger. Last week, an appeals court threw out a key contempt finding against Donziger, who’s now waiting to hear if he’ll be freed from house arrest.

Steve Donziger joins us now from his New York home. We’re also joined by Paul Paz y Miño in Oakland, associate director at Amazon Watch. He has been working on the Clean Up Ecuador Campaign for the last 14 years.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Steve Donziger, thanks so much for joining us. Why are you under house arrest? Are you currently wearing an ankle bracelet, a shackle?

STEVEN DONZIGER: I am. I am wearing an ankle bracelet. It’s about the size of a garage door opener. It’s been on my ankle since August 6, 2019. I sleep with it. I eat with that. I bathe with it. It never leaves my ankle. And it allows the government to monitor my whereabouts on a 24/7 basis.

I mean, the fundamental issue here is Chevron destroyed the Ecuadorian Amazon, and I was part of a legal team that held the company accountable. The decision in Ecuador has been affirmed by multiple appellate courts in Ecuador and Canada.

What Chevron did is, rather than pay the judgment that it owes to the thousands of people in Ecuador that it poisoned, it’s gone after me and other lawyers. And in the United States, Chevron sued me for $60 billion, which is the largest potential personal liability in the history of our country. I’m a human rights lawyer. I live in a two-bedroom apartment with my wife and son on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

Chevron then launched a campaign to really try to drive me out of the case. And as part of their strategy, they demanded to see my confidential communications with my clients, including everything on my cellphone and computer. And when I appealed that to the higher court here in New York, while the appeal was pending, Judge Kaplan charged me with criminal contempt of court for not complying with the order while the lawfulness of the order was under appeal. He then had me locked up in my home.

This is a misdemeanor charge with a maximum sentence of 180 days in prison. I assert my complete innocence. He appointed a judge, who denied me a jury. And I am the only person in the history of this country, as far as we can tell, who’s charged with a misdemeanor in the federal system, who has no criminal record, who has ever been held for even one day pretrial. And I’ve now been held 585 days on a charge that, if I were to be found guilty, would lead to a maximum penalty of 180 days in jail. And it’s very unlikely I would go to jail, because the longest sentence ever imposed on a lawyer convicted in this district of criminal contempt is 90 days of home confinement. And I’ve already served more than six times that.

So, what’s really happening here is, Chevron and its allies have used the judiciary to try to attack the very idea of corporate accountability and environmental justice work that leads to significant judgments. And I think they’re not only trying to retaliate against me; they’re trying to send a broader message to the activist community, to the legal community, that these types of cases, that truly challenge the fossil fuel industry, that are intimately connected to the survival of our planet, should not be allowed to happen in court, at least not at this level.

And I am hoping — and we had a huge victory last week in the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, where Judge Kaplan’s main contempt finding against me was thrown out. And I am hoping cooler heads prevail and the 2nd Circuit issues another decision, based on last week’s argument, that allows me to get my freedom back.

AMY GOODMAN: Everything about this is so unusual, is so astounding. Can you explain what Rule 42 is and the idea that the judge could not get federal prosecutors to indict you, so he was able to choose a private law firm, a lawyer from a private law firm connected to Chevron, and he went after you?

STEVEN DONZIGER: Well, I don’t think this is proper, and I don’t think it’s legal. It is legal for a judge to charge someone with criminal contempt with an adequate basis. I don’t think one exists here. The judge is then obligated, under Rule 42, to take the charges to the regular prosecutor, the professional prosecutor’s office. And in this case, the professional prosecutor refused to bring the case — and, I think, for good reason, again, because I don’t think — this is all about me doing my job as a lawyer and trying to defend my clients’ rights. It isn’t about me defying the court. I was seeking more court review. I wasn’t defying the court when I appealed Judge Kaplan’s order, that turned out to be unlawful.

So, when the prosecutor refused to bring the case, Judge Kaplan appointed a private law firm. Now, it is legal for a judge to appoint a private lawyer to prosecute in those circumstances, but it is not proper to appoint a law firm that has financial ties to Chevron and has an attorney-client relationship to Chevron. I mean, I am essentially being prosecuted by Chevron.

The law firm’s name, by the way, is Seward & Kissel. They’re a kind of a midsize law firm here in New York. What’s really unusual about this is, not only does Seward & Kissel have a financial relationship with Chevron, they have close ties to the oil and gas industry generally, and they’re billing taxpayers for my misdemeanor prosecution. So far they’ve been paid by taxpayers $464,000 to prosecute and detain me on a misdemeanor contempt charge. My guess is they’ve actually been paid a lot more. We haven’t seen all of their bills.

But this is — make no mistake about it, Amy. This is a for-profit, private, corporate prosecution of a human rights lawyer in the name of the government. And it’s never happened before in the history of this country. It’s terrifying, not just for me and my family, but, I think, for anyone who does this work. And I’m hoping that more and more people will notice it, and pressure will build so it has to stop. As a matter of fact, the letter to Merrick Garland by Amnesty International and other groups specifically asks him, in the Justice Department, to review what we believe is the mishandling of this case and these flagrant conflicts of interest that have allowed a private corporation’s law firm to act in the name of the state to deprive a human rights lawyer of his liberty. It’s just not right. It’s not what we know our judicial system to be. And I have to say, people around the world are appalled. I’m talking about serious lawyers from countries all over the world, who have supported the Ecuadorians and supported their lawyers, are appalled to watch this happening in the United States of America.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Steve, as you pointed out and as we began the lede, this — ultimately, this larger story is not about you. It’s about the devastation of Ecuador. And it’s what you point out repeatedly, how you got involved with this. Can you talk about the $9.5 billion — it was actually initially $18 billion — judgment that Chevron owes to the Ecuadorian people, the majority of it allocated not just to clean up the soil and water, but to create support healthcare systems and treatment of cancer patients? The significance what it was that first got you interested in this and that continues to this day?

STEVEN DONZIGER: Well, thank you, Amy. I mean, first of all, thanks for bringing that up, because, ultimately, this is not about Steven Donziger. Chevron wants that to be the story. This is about what Chevron did to poison the Amazon and Ecuador and really devastate the lives of tens of thousands of people, including resulting in death to thousands of people from cancers and other oil-related diseases.

I first went to Ecuador in 1993 as part of a team of lawyers and doctors, led by Cristóbal Bonifaz, to investigate this matter. I was kind of a marginal lawyer on a much larger team for several years. As the case evolved, I became more and more involved. I’ve worked on other cases, by the way. And I want to be clear: This is not my case. This is a case that is controlled and owned by the affected communities in Ecuador, who have a lot of other lawyers working on this. But like other people on that first trip, I couldn’t turn my back on this problem.

We have really tried, year after year, to seek a remedy, to help save lives, to help repair the Amazon, to hold Chevron accountable so this kind of thing doesn’t happen again. And we were very successful in our work. I mean, the judgment in Ecuador has been affirmed by Ecuador’s Supreme Court, by Ecuador’s Constitutional Court. It’s been affirmed by Canada’s Supreme Court for enforcement purposes in a unanimous decision in 2015.

And the attacks on me really are efforts to utilize a New York federal judge to essentially disable my advocacy, because I’ve been so involved over so many years in so many aspects of this case, including fundraising. I’ve been to Ecuador over 200 times to meet with my clients. They don’t want me involved in this case ,and they calculated that if I’m locked up in my home, the case will somehow die.

I will say this, as a quick point: The case is very viable. There are lawyers in different countries around the world exploring opportunities to enforce the judgment against Chevron’s assets. And that is happening completely independent of me.

So, while I really pray for me and my family to get a good outcome, I want to return to my work as a human rights lawyer or as a human rights advocate. This case will go on with or without me. And it’s very important people understand it has the backing of courts all over the world, except this trial judge in the appellate court here in New York, which have, really, I think, gone out of their way, based on highly questionable evidence that Chevron has presented, to try to attack me and the Ecuadorians.

AMY GOODMAN: So, I wanted to bring Paul Paz y Miño into this conversation, associate director of Amazon Watch. You, Amnesty International, National Lawyers Guild and others are now appealing to Attorney General Merrick Garland. If you can talk about both what you’re asking him to do — and then, you, too, as being involved with Amazon Watch and other groups, have been deeply involved with Ecuador. Your family lineage is back to Ecuador. Can you talk about what needs to happen now?

PAUL PAZ Y MIÑO: Yes, absolutely. Thank you. And thanks for covering this issue, Amy. I can’t think of a more important topic when it comes to climate justice, corporate accountability and what we’re facing in terms of corporate power in the U.S.

The letter that Amazon Watch and Amnesty USA and other groups have sent is, as Steven pointed out, requesting that the new attorney general conduct a review of how this case has been handled, because of improper acts of targeting Steven Donziger and locking him up in his home for a year and a half on misdemeanor contempt of court charges.

The real thing that’s going on here is Chevron is attempting to literally criminalize a human rights lawyer who beat them. He’s never been accused, let alone convicted, of a crime anywhere. And now Chevron’s machinations by Lewis Kaplan, this federal judge, and Preska, the judge that he has appointed, are on the cusp of turning him into a criminal because he didn’t comply with Kaplan’s outrageous contempt of court orders.

And so, Steven Donziger, for Chevron, is a tactic. It’s a tactic for them to avoid talking about what they actually did, and have the world not look at what they actually did in the Ecuadorian Amazon. And what we want, as the human rights and environmental justice community, is for this new administration to check the corporate power that has manipulated the judicial system to turn Steven Donziger into an example of what will happen if you stand up to corporate power in the United States. And it’s a seriously chilling one.

There is a coalition of organizations called Protect the Protest, which includes Amnesty and us and Greenpeace and many other groups, who have banded together to protect each other from corporate SLAPP attacks. And that’s essentially what we’re seeing in this case, because the —

AMY GOODMAN: And explain the term ”SLAPP attack.”

PAUL PAZ Y MIÑO: ”SLAPP” stands for “strategic lawsuit against public participation.” And this is how corporations prevent activists and organizations from standing up to their abuses. They immediately hit them with baseless lawsuits and force them to spend all the money, sometimes, that they have to defend themselves. And many states in the country do not have anti-SLAPP legislation. So, if they file it in the right place, you are forced to defend yourself against a massive legal team, in some cases. And in Chevron’s case, we’re talking about 60 law firms.

Make no mistake: They did not just go after Steven Donziger, although Steven has been the target of their abuse. They came after Amazon Watch. They came after Rainforest Action Network. They came after their own shareholders. They came after journalists. This has been a scorched-earth tactic by Chevron and their “kill step” law firm, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, based in D.C. Gibson, Dunn prides itself on what they call the kill step, which is a way to avoid international judgments on U.S. corporations by going after them in the United States.

And what’s so important about this is that the environmental racism that has been steeped from day one by the operations of a U.S. oil company is now being aided and abetted by the U.S. judiciary, because what happened is, the Ecuadorians have never had access to justice in the United States. As you heard from Steven, when the suit was first brought against Texaco in New York, they spent eight years fighting. And then New York’s same district that is now holding Steven in his home sent the case back to Ecuador, saying that it was improper venue. This is based on Texaco arguing it should not be in New York. So, again, the Ecuadorians, who have been suffering with pollution every single day, took their case again to Ecuador and fought for almost another decade to hold Chevron to account. And after they got that judgment — actually, two weeks prior to that judgment, Chevron preemptively sued, back in New York, to prevent them from ever bringing that judgment to the United States.

And the reason that’s important is that they escaped the situation where they would be faced with the facts of their abuses in the Amazon, and a judge in the United States has yet to look at the facts of what they did and determine that they should pay to clean up. And what’s dangerous for Chevron is that it’s only the United States where they’ve been protected in, but they have assets around the world. So, when Steven Donziger was working with others to enforce that judgment internationally, that’s when they turned not only to their SLAPP suit, but to criminalizing him, silencing him and making sure that he can’t continue his work to enforce that Ecuadorian judgment.

AMY GOODMAN: Vice produced a short documentary titled The World’s Worst Oil Related Disaster You’ve Never Heard Of. I want to go to a clip.

PABLO FAJARDO: [translated] Texaco utilized the cheapest technology in order to maximize their profit and economic resources, but in exchange for a larger impact on the environment and on people’s health.

ROSA MORENO: [translated] Out of every 20 babies that are born, 15 or 16 have this same condition.

ECUADORIAN MOTHER: [translated] And now my daughter, who is so young to have a disease such as cancer.

AMY GOODMAN: Steve Donziger, you tweeted, “Indigenous leader Emergildo Criollo of the Cofan is a man I greatly admire. He was a driving force behind the successful lawsuit against Chevron. Chevron engineers told him that oil was 'like milk' and full of vitamins. He lost two children to cancer.” Can you talk about him?

STEVEN DONZIGER: Oh my god. Emergildo is one of the great leaders in the Ecuadorian Amazon who has been one of the driving forces behind the lawsuit for years. I’ve known him since the early 1990s. He’s a leader of the Cofán Indigenous people. He tells these incredible stories from the 1980s, when he was a young man. He lost children to the oil contamination. And when the Indigenous peoples complained about it, the Chevron engineers would say, “Oh, no, this is not a problem. This stuff has vitamins in it. It’s like milk.” I mean, can you imagine the level of disrespect and the level of abuse?

And it really raises a larger issue, which is this case has been led by people like Emergildo and other Indigenous leaders and shamans and rural community leaders, like Luis Yanza and other Ecuadorian lawyers, who won a resounding victory in court. This case really isn’t about me. Chevron has tried to make a caricature out of this case by focusing on me. And it’s important to focus on the people who are really, really suffering and continue to suffer down in Ecuador.

AMY GOODMAN: We only have 10 seconds, but, so, there was a judgment, reduced to $9 billion. What happens now?

STEVEN DONZIGER: The Ecuadorians, with their lawyers, will continue to try to enforce the judgment against Chevron’s assets and force the company to comply with the law. We’ve held them accountable. We won the judgment. We will continue to hold them accountable, forcing them to actually pay the judgment. So, this case is viable and still going on.

AMY GOODMAN: And you remain under house arrest after 600 days.

STEVEN DONZIGER: Yes, yes.

AMY GOODMAN: Steve Donziger, I want to thank you for being with us, human rights lawyer who successfully sued Chevron in Ecuador, waiting to hear if he will be freed after nearly 600 days of house arrest. I’m Amy Goodman. Stay safe. Wear a mask.
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Re: Steven Donziger Under House Arrest After Suing Chevron

Postby admin » Sun Mar 28, 2021 2:41 am

Corporate Prisoner [Steven Donziger]
by Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader Radio Hour
March 27, 2021

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


LISTEN TO THE PODCAST SHOW

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Ralph speaks to human rights lawyer, Steven Donziger, who represented the indigenous people of Ecuador and won a multi-billion dollar judgement against Chevron for polluting the Ecuadorian rain forest in what is known as the “Amazon Chernobyl.” So why has he been held under house arrest in New York for nearly years? Tune in to find out.

Steven Donziger is an advocate, writer, and public speaker who specializes in addressing corporate malfeasance and human rights abuses. He was a member of the legal team that won a landmark $9.5 billion judgement against Chevron for the environmental cleanup of an area of the Ecuadorian Amazon. He is one of many from that team now fighting, on their own behalf, against Chevron’s retaliatory lawsuits in US courts.

“I first went to Ecuador… with a team of lawyers and doctors to investigate what we were told was the world’s worst oil-related catastrophe, in the northern part of Ecuador’s Amazon. Where Texaco had operated for 25 years, and had designed a system to deliberately pollute the environment as a way to lower its production costs. This was not an accident. This was not like the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. This was a system designed to pollute.”

-- Steven Donziger Human Rights Lawyer


“What Chevron has been doing to Steve Donziger, it’s not just an environmental suit. It’s a human rights suit affecting the health and safety of thousands of indigenous peoples in the Amazonian area of Ecuador.”

-- Ralph Nader


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“There was obviously a mass poisoning going on of this entire region and all the little rural communities in this area. The roads were filled with oil because Texaco would suck some of the oil out of the pits and dump it along the roads to keep the dust down.”

-- Steven Donziger Human Rights Lawyer


“Once [the legal battle] shifted to New York City, the key ally of Chevron was Judge Lewis Kaplan… Judge Kaplan proceeded to do such partisan maneuvers and denial of due process, the likes of which I’ve rarely read about in American judicial history.”

-- Ralph Nader


“I have a right under US law, under international law, to a neutral fact finder and an unbiased judge and a disinterested prosecutor, and I have none of that… Go figure. It’s just unbelievable the interconnectedness of these various interests in a situation where the law requires utter neutrality.”

-- Steven Donziger Human Rights Lawyer


The Judicial Code of Conduct

FREEDONZIGER.COM

https://www.freedonziger.org/

DONATE TO THE STEVEN DONZIGER DEFENSE FUND

https://www.donzigerdefense.com/

DONZIGERLAW.COM

https://www.donzigerlaw.com/

MAKE CHEVRON CLEAN UP

https://www.makechevroncleanup.com/
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Re: Steven Donziger Under House Arrest After Suing Chevron

Postby admin » Sat Apr 10, 2021 1:32 am

Corporate Prisoner: [Steven Donziger]
Ralph Nader Radio Hour
by Ralph Nader
https://www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/corporate-prisoner/

Steve Skrovan: Welcome to the Ralph Nader Rader Hour. My name is Steve Skrovan along with my co-host, David Feldman. Hello there, David.

David Feldman: Hello, everybody.

Steve Skrovan: And the man of the hour, Ralph Nader. Hello, Ralph.

Ralph Nader: Hello. Today we're going to find out what Steve Donziger didn't learn at Harvard Law School.

Steve Skrovan: And to explain exactly what Ralph was talking about, on today's program, we're going to talk about Chevron a powerful corporation that doesn't handle defeat gracefully. A multi-billion dollar international petrochemical conglomerate, Chevron bought up their competitor Texaco in 2001, and inherited a class action lawsuit over a little mess known as the Amazon Chernobyl. That suit was filed on behalf of more than 30,000 farmers and indigenous people whose lands and bodies were poisoned by oil drilling operations in the rainforest of Ecuador.

Chevron didn't want to clean up their oopsy, took the suit to an Ecuadorian court, and in 2011, they lost the case in an $18 billion judgment. Then Chevron appealed all the way to Ecuador Supreme Court. Then Chevron got their judgment reduced to nine and a half billion. Then Chevron moved their assets out of Ecuador so the plaintiffs could never collect. Then Chevron filed a RICO [Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations] suit against one of the plaintiff's lawyers, Steven Donziger. They sought $60 billion in damages. They accused them of extortion and fraud, racketeering, obstruction of justice and witness tampering. And that was just the beginning. So today Steven Donziger is going to tell us his side of the story. He'll be our only guest today. And as a special treat, we've invited onto the show our resident constitutional scholar, Bruce Fein, who will be part of the conversation. Hello, Bruce.

Bruce Fein: How are you today? Good/wonderful.

Steve Skrovan: It'll be great to have you here. Ralph, you can bring him in at any point. And as always, we will check in with our corporate crime reporter, Russell Mokhiber. But first, what happens when you sue Chevron? They say, “You sue us? No, we sue you.” Steven Donziger is an environmental law attorney whose legal team won a landmark judgment against Chevron for polluting the Amazon rainforest. So why did a New York judge place him under house arrest? Let's find out. Welcome to the Ralph Nader Rader Hour, Steven Donziger.

Steven Donziger: Hey, thank you for having me. Appreciate it.

Ralph Nader: Welcome indeed. This is a global cause célèbre what Chevron has been doing to Steve Donziger. And it's not just an environmental suit, it's a human rights suit affecting the health and safety of thousands of indigenous peoples in the Amazonian area of Ecuador. It was originally Texaco that spilled huge amounts of oil and total disregard of safety in so many respects before it was purchased by Chevron. And Steve has had the support of 55 Nobel Laureates. He's had the support of scores of lawyers who have criticized the case for judicial improprieties and malicious prosecution by Chevron and its law firms. Some of you may have heard about this case, but for those of you who haven't, I want Steve to summarize the case up to the [US] Second Circuit Court of Appeals decision a few weeks ago, overturning one of the charges against Steve. Steve, why don't you summarize the case and we'll take it to, I hope, a new level of exposure.

Steven Donziger: Well, thank you, Ralph, Steve and Bruce. I'll say at the outset, Ralph, one of the reasons I got into this line of work is because I was always inspired by you and hearing you speak at Harvard Law when I was a student there. It was something I still remember. Jason Adkins, a law school friend, was introducing you. So thank you for all you've done and for what all of y'all have done. It's inspirational.

Now, the case. This has been a 27-year case. So I'm going to give you the real thumbnail sketch. Basically, I first went to Ecuador as a young lawyer in 1993 with a team of lawyers and doctors to investigate what we were told was the world's worst oil-related catastrophe in the Northern part of Ecuador's Amazon, where Texaco had operated for 25 years and had designed a system to deliberately pollute the environment as a way to lower its production costs. This was not an accident. It was not like the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. This was a system designed to pollute. And when the indigenous peoples who were living in this region started to notice that their water sources, their beautiful, fresh water sources in this delicate pristine ecosystem started to taste funny and there was oil in them, they were told by Texaco's engineers, that there was nothing to worry about and that the oil was like milk and had vitamins. There was a complete abuse of the people of this region in the way Texaco designed this system. Ultimately, Chevron bought Texaco in 2001. So I'm going to describe this as a Chevron problem because it now is a Chevron problem.

Ralph Nader: And Steve, let me interrupt that. How large a territory of pollution was this?

Steven Donziger: It's approximately 1500 square miles. There's six separate oil fields in this enormous area. By the way, in the modern day, you'd never be able to buy a concession, an oil concession this large. You know, this was the first big oil concession Ecuador sold, and they didn't really know what they were doing. So the area is enormous. [It] has six oil fields, has hundreds of oil wells and at least a thousand toxic oil pits, most of which would be considered on their own Superfund sites under US law. So it's an enormous area with an enormous amount of pollution and an enormous kind of operational infrastructure that Texaco had built up over many years.

When we went down there in 1993, it was like looking at an apocalyptic scene. I mean, there was gigantic lakes of oil in the rainforest. There were these pits they built, Texaco built, with this toxic oil in it that they built pipes out of the side of the pits to run the overflow into streams that people were drinking their fresh water out of. There was obviously a mass poisoning going on in this entire region and all the little rural communities in this area. The roads were filled with oil, because Texaco would suck some of the oil out of the pits and dump it along the roads to keep the dust down. But people were so impoverished they couldn't even afford shoes. And they would just had oil all over their bodies and all the little kids, the little babies had, you know, skin issues related to the oil and bathing in the oil.

And what happened was over a period of a few years, this beautiful rain forest that the indigenous folks had relied on for really their very prosperous lives, for millennia, had become poisoned. And you could no longer fish, get fish that was clean. You could no longer get clean water. When they had to move away from the rivers and streams, they'd dug wells, but the residue from the pits often seeped into the groundwater, so you couldn't get clean groundwater. You know, then they tried to get clean water by capturing rain, you know, it rains a lot in the forest, but there was all this toxic flaring going on, dioxins and cancer-causing substances in the air that the rain would come down with black soot in it. And basically, the people were being bombarded on a 24/7 basis with pollution.

Ralph Nader: And no regulation, whatsoever?

Steven Donziger: Virtually none. I mean, you know, Texaco did this openly, deliberately for many years. And the biggest fine they were ever hit with by the regulatory authorities was about $50.

Ralph Nader: And they were getting this oil per barrel pretty cheap, I suppose.

Steven Donziger: Extremely cheap. And they were making, you know, massive sums of money. I mean, so was the Ecuadorian government to some degree, but Texaco was, you know, had a great, had negotiated a really favorable deal. And they made billions and billions of dollars while they were dumping the toxic waste onto the lands of these indigenous peoples. And, you know, ultimately, Ralph, it's a business model that is based on grifting. I mean, basically, you know, Texaco took out the oil, made the profits, privatized the profits and then socialized the costs onto some of the most vulnerable communities on the planet.

So to get to sort of the litigation, which I'll try to describe quickly, we filed in US Federal Court in New York against Texaco. And the reason we filed in New York – this is in 1993. The reason we filed in New York is because that's where Texaco's headquarters was. That's where the decision to pollute Ecuador was made. We then fought for 10 years to get in the courthouse door. Texaco was represented by King & Spalding [LLP] at the time. And they fought hard to get the case to Ecuador. They filed multiple affidavits, praising Ecuador's court system. Ultimately, they won that battle. The case went down to Ecuador in 2001. We organized a team of Ecuadorian lawyers to continue the case. Chevron had promised to accept jurisdiction in Ecuador as a condition of the case being moved out based on the doctrine of forum non conveniens. The first thing they did when we got there was they challenged jurisdiction, went back on their word and they became very obstructionist. And the case took eight years. It culminated in a resounding and important victory for the communities who are represented by a team of Ecuadorian lawyers. I mean, that happened in 2011. Chevron knew it was likely to lose the case based on the evidence. So, a couple of weeks before the Ecuadorians won in the court of Chevron's choosing, Chevron came back up to New York and came to the court that they had tried to block Ecuador from litigating in the ‘90s; came back to that same court to sue me under a racketeering law, claiming that the entire Ecuador case that I had spent many years working on, was a sham litigation and the product of fraud.

And, you know, in 2009, Chevron, we got an internal email from a Chevron consultant saying that their strategy, their defense strategy was to demonize Donziger. And this was really the first big step in what I've been dealing with for the last 10 or 11 years now, which is probably maybe the most well-financed corporate attack on a single individual in the history of our country. And Ralph, I know this must resonate with you given what you dealt with back in the 1960s with your work on auto safety. But I can tell you, this has not ended.

I mean, they are trying to destroy me, and their strategy includes three key components. I mean, component one is to just destroy my reputation by claiming I'm a criminal. And they did this in the RICO case before Judge Lewis A. Kaplan. They denied me a jury. They paid a witness $2 million in cash and benefits to come up and claim he was in a meeting with me in Ecuador when I approved the bribe of a trial judge in Ecuador, which was totally false. There's zero evidence to corroborate this guy's testimony. He was prepped for 53 days before he testified by Chevron's lawyers at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher [LLP]. And he later admitted lying repeatedly before Judge Kaplan. Judge Kaplan, nevertheless, again, without a jury, credited his testimony and issued a ruling claiming that I had obtained the judgment in Ecuador by fraud.

Ralph Nader: And before we get into that, he recanted, this witness recanted later after Chevron brought him and paid for his location here in the United States. Isn't that correct?

Steven Donziger: That's correct.

Steven Donziger: He recanted, but that didn't change Judge Kaplan's opinion. Because the point of the exercise, I believe, for Judge Kaplan was to carry out Chevron's demonization campaign and not issue what I would consider to be a fair ruling based on the facts and the laws.

Ralph Nader: Steve, after receiving evidence and huge amount of testimony, the court in Ecuador rendered a huge verdict against Chevron, which prompted Chevron's counterattack against the judge and against the judicial system in Ecuador, the very country they wanted the case to be decided in the first place. Can you tell us the size of the verdict, which was never collected, and also what they tried to do to the judge?

Steven Donziger: Sure, Ralph. The verdict was large. It was close to 20 billion initially. Half of that was actual damages; half was punitive damages. But the punitive part was reversed on appeal. So the judgment ended up being about $9.5 billion. Just by way of comparison, BP has paid $60-70 billion for the much smaller Deepwater Horizon spill. So while that might seem like a lot of money to a company like Chevron, it really is not a huge amount. I would say it's a modest amount.

Now, upon receiving that judgment, Chevron launched a full-scale scorched earth assault on anyone who was involved in the case--anyone of importance, including the trial judge in Ecuador, myself, the 47 named plaintiffs, that is indigenous peoples who live in the forest. They named them as defendants. And, you know, in my view, this was the mother of all SLAPP [strategic lawsuit against public participation] lawsuits. It was designed to scare and intimidate anyone who was working on the case and really get us all to give up. Because Chevron knew it could not win on the merits, and it was trying to win, I think, through this intimidation tactic of suing everyone who was involved in helping the Ecuadorians win their judgment that's been affirmed by multiple appellate courts.

Ralph Nader: And once it shifted to New York City, the key ally of Chevron was Judge Lewis Kaplan, who came from a corporate law firm before he was appointed to his position, where he represented the tobacco industry over a period of years. And Judge Kaplan proceeded to do such partisan maneuvers and denial of due process, the likes of which I’ve rarely read about in American judicial history. Can you go through the process here and how he bypassed even the prosecutors and try to summarize just the hellish nature of what you confronted in federal district court in New York?

Steven Donziger: Well, it was not anything close to what most people would consider to be a fair trial. Judge Kaplan structured the trial so I would lose and look as bad as possible in my view. And the sort of the term I use is he reverse engineered the trial to produce the outcome he wanted. And he did this by working closely with the Chevron lawyers to allow this paid witness to come in and create false testimony that I supposedly bribed a judge when I did not. He hid the fact, for the most part, that Chevron had paid this witness significant sums of money [and] had coached him for 53 days. He refused to let me testify on direct and tell my story. He denied a jury trial.

Ralph Nader: He denied you a jury trial? How could he do that under our Constitution?

Steven Donziger: He just did; let me explain. I am the first person in US history, you know, (who) sued under civil RICO who has been denied a jury and I hope I'm the last. The way he did that, and again, this was all maneuvering, what I call the reverse engineering of the case, is Chevron had initially sued me for $60 billion under civil RICO were entitled to treble damages. So once I prepared for a jury trial and I had a really good solid legal team, Chevron got spooked. And on the eve of trial that was supposed to be a jury trial, they dropped every penny of their damages claims. And Judge Kaplan used that as a reason to deny me a jury. So at that point, we asked for the case to be thrown out. It's a civil case. They're not seeking damages. It's moot at that point. And Judge Kaplan essentially went ahead anyway and issued what we consider to be an illegal advisory opinion about what Ecuador's courts did without even looking at the evidence that Ecuador's courts used to find Chevron liable, you know. So Judge Kaplan, Lewis A. Kaplan let his courtroom be used by Chevron and his lawyers at Gibson Dunn really as a weapon to try to undermine a foreign court judgment that's been affirmed by the highest court of the sovereign nation, in this case, Ecuador.

Ralph Nader: Then he zeroed in on you to punish you. What was the judicial demeanor like before he did something, which was truly astounding? He outsourced part of the case to a private corporate law firm in New York City that represents the oil companies. What was his judicial demeanor like? And were there any reporters in the courtroom at the time?

Steven Donziger: Yeah, I mean, you know, his demeanor was not what I would consider to be judicious, you know, I mean, others can comment. I mean, I was the person really under the gun during the trial. I mean, he really, you know, I don't consider Judge Kaplan's demeanor – as regards my case and I've been before him many, many times – to be consistent with what we expect of our judges in this country or in any country that really adheres to the rule of law. I think there was a real abuse of power here by Chevron and by Judge Kaplan. I say this respectfully, because I respect judges and I respect the rule of law and I respect our court system. But, you know, there's just no denying this was not a fair trial and anyone who watched it, anyone who looks at the record, I think, agrees with me. And the fact that courts in Canada, including the Supreme Court of Canada, the Supreme Court of Ecuador have ruled contrary to Judge Kaplan really makes my point.

Ralph Nader: You had competent lawyers representing you. In fact, one of them now representing you is a professor of law at Harvard, Charles Nesson. But the judge wasn't satisfied with what was going on in the courtroom and he wasn't satisfied with the prosecutor not going along with what the judge wanted to go after you. What did he do?

Steven Donziger: So basically, you know, as we were litigating our enforcement actions around the world, Judge Kaplan charged me with criminal contempt of court for appealing an order, I believe an unlawful order, and turned out to be unlawful, that I turn over my computer, cell phone and all my confidential communications to Chevron in the middle of the litigation. And his theory was, you know, Chevron had dropped all damages claims against me to void the jury. So subsequent to Judge Kaplan's decision in a non-jury trial, he imposed without a jury millions of dollars of court costs on me, essentially ordered me to pay Chevron's legal fees for their persecution. And I'm a human rights or who lives in a two-bedroom apartment. They're a company that has 250 billion annually in revenue. And this was just another component of the attack strategy, which was to bankrupt me and to take my life savings and to take all my assets and really force me into homelessness. Because had I not had enough cushion with my wife and had we not owned our apartment in Manhattan, I don't know where I'd be right now. You know, he basically took all my money or let Chevron take all my money and freeze my bank accounts. So, you know, even though Chevron got the benefit of denying me a jury by dropping damages claims, they ended up after the case still without a jury getting millions of dollars of damages against me that they've used to essentially wipe out my life savings. And Judge Kaplan authorized this every step of the way.

Ralph Nader: Then he used hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money to hire a private law firm by the name of Seward & Kissel to do what?

Steven Donziger: To prosecute me in the name of the government. I mean, he basically turned over to Big Oil, the oil industry, the power to prosecute its main critic. That's me. Judge Kaplan was obligated under the law once a judge charges a person with criminal contempt. And I assert my innocence. I think the charges really are highly questionable if not baseless. But let's assume they're legit. At that point, he's obligated to take the charges to the US attorney for prosecution, which he did. In this case, the US attorney in New York turned down the case, declined to prosecute me for obvious reasons in my view. Judge Kaplan then appointed Seward & Kissel, a private law firm that has an attorney-client relationship with Chevron, to prosecute me in the name of the government. So essentially, I'm being prosecuted by a Chevron law firm that is billing taxpayers and has billed taxpayers approximately $600,000 to go after me on a misdemeanor. And they've also locked me up in my home now for almost 600 days on a charge that has a maximum penalty upon conviction of 180 days. There was no purpose to this other than to harm me and to have Chevron retaliate against me for our successful human rights work in holding the company accountable in Ecuador. But what's really shocking is that this is happening in US courts. I mean, if you look at this, Ralph and Steve, I'm the only person that we can find in the entire United States who was charged in the federal system with a misdemeanor, who has been held even one day prior to trial. And now I've already been held almost 600 days. I mean, it's just unheard of.

Ralph Nader: You’re in effect under house arrest for a civil misdemeanor contempt charge by Judge Lewis Kaplan?

Steven Donziger: Yeah. Well, it's a criminal misdemeanor contempt charge now because he just pressed a button and called it criminal. But regardless, I mean, you don't lock people up on misdemeanors when they have no criminal record. It's just, it never happens. There's not a single other example of this happening in our country. Why is it happening to me? You know, might it have something to do with my successful human rights work? You know, might it have something to do with the fact that I'm being prosecuted by a private Chevron law firm as opposed to prosecuted by the regular federal professional prosecutor? You know, and this private law firm, Seward & Kissel, is billing taxpayers massive sums of money to go after me.

Ralph Nader: I'm sure some of our listeners are saying, well, is there any limit to how many millions of taxpayer dollars he can spend paying a private corporate law firm to in effect prosecute you when the federal prosecutor turned it down for lack of sufficient evidence? Is there any limit? He's already at the level of some $600,000. Any limit?

Steven Donziger: I don't know of any limit. I mean, they seem to have limitless funds and just, you know, this is an important point. In the federal system here in New York, if you're assigned counsel for a criminal defendant charged with a misdemeanor, the maximum amount of money you can be paid is $3200 for your representation. Seward & Kissel has already billed $600,000 to prosecute me. I mean, it's just extraordinary. It's like literally, you know, a hundred plus times more than what a defense lawyer would get in this type of case.

Ralph Nader: Well, how did they get away with that?

Steven Donziger: Judge Kaplan authorizes it, and apparently, there's a fund in the federal trial court for this purpose. I mean, I don't know where the money comes from. We tried to find out. But judge Loretta Preska, who Judge Kaplan appointed to preside over my contempt cases, refused to grant us any kind of hearing to figure out, you know, a) Seward & Kissel’s relationship, the full breadth of their relationship with Chevron. We know it exists because they've admitted it, but we don't know the details of it. You know, whether they represented Chevron in the Ecuador case in some way; we think they might have. And you know, whether they're engaging, and we think they are engaging in ex parte communications with Judge Kaplan, which they've never denied.

Ralph Nader: Well, listeners should know. We're talking with Steve Donziger, who is the lead lawyer, human rights, environmental lawyer, to defend indigenous tribes in the Amazonian area of Ecuador against the massive poisoning and resultant illnesses and disease by Texaco drilling for oil and a company was purchased by Chevron. So Chevron becomes the main progenitor here of these legal actions. Steve, let me ask you this. I like to have people’s names put on the table here. Tell me the names of the lawyers for the Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher firm. Tell me the names of the lawyers for Seward & Kissel. They hide behind their firm names. Let's put their names on the table here. And I want you to characterize, under the code of professional ethics, their behavior.

Steven Donziger: Okay. So in Seward & Kissel, that is the Chevron lawyers prosecuting me, there's three of them primarily: a woman named Rita Glavin, a gentlemen named Brian Maloney and another woman named, I think her name is Sareen Armani. In Gibson, Dunn, it's Randy Mastro, Andrea Neuman, Anne Champion, William Thomson, Ted Boutrous, and you know, a slew of others. But those are the main ones. You know, these people are profiting massive sums of money by engaging in what I believe is a human rights violation against the people of Ecuador and their counsel, meaning me. But I think it's important that they be held to account on a personal level. You know, they have also orchestrated my disbarment without a hearing. It's under appeal now before the New York Court of Appeals. I'm talking about the Gibson Dunn team led by Randy Mastro. And in my bar hearing, which I finally got, it was called a post suspension hearing, the Chevron, there were eight Chevron lawyers from Gibson Dunn in my hearing occupying scare space and clearly text messaging my two bar grievance council prosecutors.

Ralph Nader: Well, have they violated, in one way or another, the professional code of ethics?

Steven Donziger: In my opinion, yes. I think when lawyers, you know, present paid witness testimony and ultimately false evidence to try to frame a human rights lawyer, yeah, obviously that violates the code of professional ethics and much worse. But this is the game that is being played right now. It's a part of a playbook that Gibson Dunn has invented. I shouldn't say they've invented it; they've sort of perfected it. It's always existed, as you know better than most, to turn the tables on corporate accountability lawyers and campaigners who are successful.

Ralph Nader: Just like there's a group of lawyers called themselves defenders of democracy moving to disbar Rudy Giuliani. They filed the 50-page complaint with the New York lawyer regulatory commission [New York State Bar Association], whatever its actual name is. So this could be done against these lawyers as well. Now that's not anything you can get involved in, but I just want to put it before our listeners that these lawyers have to be held accountable as well. Now what about the shareholders? Has there been any shareholder action against Chevron for wasting so much of its resources and violating so many standards and protocols and perhaps verdicts in Ecuador? Any action there that you know of?

Steven Donziger: So the Ecuadorian communities have worked with a lot of Chevron shareholders over the years to sponsor resolutions questioning management's obvious mishandling of the litigation and waste of money on legal fees. And some of these resolutions, you know, have won the support of the advisory bodies and have gotten very significant support in the 30-40% range, which as you know is a lot. And then a bunch of people, well-known people like Alec Baldwin and other indigenous leaders from Ecuador, like Berto [Elias Roberto] Payahuaje have gone to shareholder meetings and confronted the CEO about these abuses. The CEO by the way of Chevron is Michael Wirth. And they just, you know, they have not done anything. Okay. And what I mean by that is the management of Chevron, the management team is, I think, up to its neck in this awful strategy that they've authorized so many expenditures for legal fees, and I think they're so deep in it they don't know how to get out of it. And they just keep going and going and going down the same path of scorched earth, spend money on lawyers, disrespect the people of Ecuador, disrespect the rule of law, don't pay the judgment. So, I think Chevron's management is behaving in really an unethical way. I think they don't know how to shift gears. And I also think that Gibson Dunn lawyers and Chevron’s general counsel and CEO are really in bed together in terms of their common interest in destroying me and evading this judgment, because they've already spent so much money, invested so much money in the strategy. Now there was an email in 2009, an internal Chevron email, that said “our long-term strategy is to demonize Donziger.” Okay. This has always been their strategy, because they know they have no argument on the merits. And that is wrong, you know. So I don't know a way for shareholders to step up the pressure, but I will say this. The public pension fund world has been pretty supportive of the Ecuadorians in terms of challenging Chevron management on this issue; the private fund world less so. And you know, you've seen kind of a shift with the BlackRock letter by Larry Fink about the importance of placing environmental concerns front and center when making investment decisions. I think we're living in an extraordinary moment on this issue. And I would like to see some of the private funds sort of look at this and also challenge company management. I think that would make a big difference.

Ralph Nader: Now, one more frolic and detour by Judge Lewis Kaplan. He found the judge to do part of the work in his singular mission to destroy your legal career. Tell us about the judge. Steven Donziger: The judge who is overseeing my contempt case, Loretta Preska?

Ralph Nader: Yes. What's her name?

Ralph Nader: Loretta Preska. She was appointed by the older President [George H.W.] Bush in the early ‘90s. She's a very active, I'd say, activist judge in terms of her involvement in the Federalist Society. Chevron is a major donor to the Federalist Society. The Chevron law firm Gibson Dunn is a major donor to the Federalist Society. And you know, there's a local rule here in New York that all criminal cases should be randomly assigned. Judge Kaplan didn't want to let that happen. He appointed Judge Preska, who again has financial ties to Chevron via her Federalist Society membership, to preside over my criminal contempt case. And she's the one who locked me up in an unprecedented way way back in August 6, 2019. I've been in my home ever since. I mean, no one's ever heard of this.

So, you know, she's not a neutral judge. She's biased in favor of Chevron and in favor of, I think, Judge Kaplan's agenda. I have a right under US law and international law to neutral fact finding, an unbiased judge and a disinterested prosecutor. And I have none of that. Judge Kaplan has investments in Chevron. Judge Preska has financial ties to Chevron via the Federalist Society. And Rita Glavin, my main prosecutor, works for a Chevron law firm. She's a partner there and makes profits from Chevron's payments to her law firm on whatever the law firm was representing them on. Beyond that, one of Seward & Kissel’s main clients is a company called Oaktree Capital [Management]. Look at Oaktree Capital. They have two executives on Chevron's board of directors. And I just discovered, this is another astounding thing, you know, the New York Times has completely ignored the story for two or three years. You know, I've pitched multiple reporters I know over there. And for some reason, while they appropriately cover human rights problems around the world, they can’t, you know, get in a taxi and go one mile up the street to my house and interview me. When I'm realizing that there's a billionaire investor named Robert Denham, who serves simultaneously on Chevron's board of directors; he serves on the board of directors of the New York Times, and he's a major figure in Oaktree Capital, which is the main client of the prosecuting Chevron law firm, Seward & Kissel. I mean, go figure. It's just unbelievable the interconnectedness of these various interests in a situation that where the law requires utter neutrality.

Ralph Nader: Has there been a formal petition by your lawyers demanding Judge Lewis Kaplan recuse himself for overwhelming conflicts of interest and injudicious behavior?

Steven Donziger: Yes, there's been multiple recusal motions. He denies them all. We've taken two of them to the appellate court; they ruled in his favor. You know, there's an institutional thing going on here in New York where the appellate court, and I say this respectfully, because I have matters pending before them, but it's seems to be very hard for the appellate court to hold Judge Kaplan to account, which is why he seems to be increasingly emboldened to do these, what I would call, radical moves that are obviously abusive and illegal.

Ralph Nader: Well, before we get to some of the indigenous leaders that you worked with in the Amazon, because they deserve to be described by you for their efforts, let's bring in Bruce Fein. Bruce, what are your views on all this? And how do you make the judiciary, especially Judge Lewis Kaplan accountable here? Or are they law unto their own making, the whole federal judicial establishment in New York City?

Bruce Fein: Well, it is rather shocking. I mean, the law is quite clear that you have a due process right before bias seeps in, you know, to avoid a trial before a clearly biased judge. And that standard was reiterated on numerous occasions in connection most recently with Michael Flynn mandamus petitions up and down before he got pardoned by President [Donald] Trump. So the argument that while you have to suffer through a trial-biased judge and then a year and a half or two years later, you know, make your claim on appeal, is clear legal error. And with regard to how can we get the judiciary to police itself because it's very clubbish; it is very difficult. And all I could think is at least now it might be possible to seek some kind of congressional oversight hearing before the House Judiciary Subcommittee, because you need sunshine. Jamie Raskin is the chair of the subcommittee at present. This kind of misconduct is shrouded in secrecy. And you point out the New York Times is not covering it. And the only way to embarrass a court and to move it forward is to cast the sunshine and information on it and certainly that’s something that could happen with a congressional oversight hearing. You're correct [that] it's possible. I don't know who is the circuit judge for the Second Circuit who sits on the Supreme Court.? Is that [Sonia] Sotomayor?

Steven Donziger: I believe that’s correct. Sotomayor

Bruce Fein: Yeah. Because that's the only other place they could go. You could seek an immediate stay of the proceedings until the Supreme Court could have a chance to review, you know, a certiorari petition, because the facts are so egregious. Now, the other thing is, because it seems, Steve, that you've uncovered additional facts showing bias, at least the appearance of bias, with these interconnecting board memberships and financing that would justify returning and making a renewing motion to recuse because we have, you know, newly discovered evidence that was acquired by further due diligence, if you will. But it's unfortunate that the independence of the judicial branch does enable this clubbishness to work in this rather insidious fashion, if you will, almost incestuous to protect each other.

Ralph Nader: Listening to all this, Steve, reminds me of all the hundreds of thousands of minority defendants falsely accused without competent counsel railroaded to jails by biased or crooked judges at the state and federal level all over the country in our country's history. But this is an amazingly high-profile brazen attempt to mimic the criminal injustice system that has been inflicting its rapacious powers over powerless people in our country; not just minorities, powerless people in our country. So this has additional significance in terms of putting a ray of light. The New York Times has written all kinds of articles about biased southern judges against Black defendants and it won't cover this story?

Steven Donziger: It’s amazing. It's amazing. I mean, Marty [Martin] Garbus, who is one of my lawyers, legendary civil rights lawyer [who] represented Nelson Mandela, Daniel Ellsberg and so many important people in our history, says this is the worst judicial corruption he's ever seen. He says he's never seen anything like this. And you know, I think, getting back to a point, I think, Bruce made, I think we have to get Congress to speak out and look at this. You know, this is not how the judiciary is supposed to work. We have some various groups like Amazon Watch and the Sunrise Movement [that have] reached out to Representative Raskin [and were met with] total silence. You know, we're in the process of trying to reach out to some other senators and congresspersons, but there just seems to be very little interest. And I think Chevron is very active lobbying against me up on the hill. But Congress must do something here. I mean, that's like the last voice that hasn't been heard from.

And the second thing is, several human rights groups led by Amnesty International, have written a letter to Merrick Garland demanding an immediate review of this obvious human rights violation. You know, think back to when the federal prosecutor refused to prosecute me. Okay. And Judge Kaplan appointed not just any private firm, but a Chevron firm. That's wrong; that's an embarrassment on the [US] Department of Justice [DOJ], it’s an embarrassment for our country. And this letter asked Merrick Garland and asked the DOJ to take back the case from Seward & Kissel such that I can be prosecuted by a professional prosecutor, not a for-profit, private prosecutor. I mean, these people are making money off extending this case and keeping me detained. I believe a professional prosecutor never would have had me detained and probably would have dismissed the charges immediately. I mean, that's why they didn't take the case. So they need to take the case back. So those two things are really important. We need Congress persons like Jamie Raskin to speak out, and we need the Department of Justice to take the case back from the private Chevron law firm, so it can be prosecuted consistent with the rule of law.

Ralph Nader: Well, it's not like we're asking members of Congress like Jamie Raskin to demonstrate a profile in courage. On September 1, for example, 2020, “Dozens of legal organizations around the world representing more than 500,000 lawyers along with over 200 individual lawyers submitted a judicial complaint documenting a series of shocking violations of the judicial code of conduct [Code of Conduct for United States Judges],” the judicial code of conduct, I repeat, “by United States Judge Lewis A. Kaplan targeting human rights lawyer Steven Donziger after he helped Indigenous peoples win a historic judgment against Chevron in Ecuador to clean up the pollution caused by decades of oil drilling with no environmental controls.” I'm quoting from a press release on this demand, September 1, 2020. What if you get a couple of hundred lawyers petitioning the editors of the New York Times and other New York City media, television, radio, other newspapers to cover the story? I think that would start moving the needle a bit.

Steven Donziger: I think it would. I think that would be great. I think, you know, look, it's just shocking to me the New York Times hasn't written about it. I mean, take my emotion and my views out of it. It's just an interesting story to have a Harvard law grad; I went to school with Barack Obama; I've worked for years as a human rights lawyer--to have a person like that, you know, locked up in his home for almost two years without trial on a misdemeanor. I mean, that's a story, right? That's an interesting story in the United States of America. So, I just find it shocking they haven't covered it. And again, I think that kind of pressure is really important, because the only thing that's going to correct this problem and save me and my family is public scrutiny, public outcry, and transparency.

Ralph Nader: Yeah. Single handedly, the New York Times can turn this situation around. They know how to do it.

Steven Donziger: I don’t know. I don’t know, Ralph, if you and your colleagues know how to do that, but it would be helpful if that were to happen, obviously.

Ralph Nader: And also citizen groups, people organize to clean up court corruption, can also join and demand greater coverage of this. The stench from this whole situation you've been describing and others who are not even involved in your case have been describing, like lawyers around the world, Nobel Laureates, is rising above the Hudson River in Manhattan Island. The new Attorney General Merrick Garland, is not without responsibility in looking into this matter. After all, the US district attorneys operate under his jurisdiction.

Bruce Fein: But I'm also thinking that there has not been, I do believe, a new US attorney for the southern district of New York. And it would be compelling if we could get Chuck Schumer when it comes for the hearing for that confirmation or [Kirsten] Gillibrand to insist and extract the promise from the new US attorney there that they will make public the fact that their decision not to prosecute is being overridden and to make a public statement to that effect; that we're dumbfounded that the judge would not rely upon the judgment of the prosecutor. But that opportunity would be right. He's got to get Senate clearance. So he's got to respond to those kinds of questions.

Ralph Nader: That's a good point. Steve, is the New York Times going to say that years ago they covered your story?

Steven Donziger: Well, you know, I've talked to a bunch of reporters there. I mean, one actually had a story assigned, started working on it, and then it got killed two weeks later.

Ralph Nader: But when was the last time they covered it and actually printed it?

Steven Donziger: Years ago.

Ralph Nader: Like what? 5, 10?

Steven Donziger: No, like it was at the end of the RICO case. It was like 2013 or ‘14.

Ralph Nader: Okay. And the other thing is you were on 60 Minutes on 2009, right?

Ralph Nader: That story won an Emmy [Award] and ended up getting knocked off the CBS website under pressure from Chevron. They never – CBS has always stood by that incredible report, that embarrassed the hell out of Chevron, told the truth. But you know, under, I think, ad pressure and other pressure, they decided not to engage with Chevron, and they took it down. I will say that the pressure on big media from Chevron is constant and intense. I mean, they have killed so many stories. I have incredible stories about how they kill stories about this case. On the other hand, the performance of the independent media--The Nation, The Intercept, and other outlets like that, you guys, the ScheerPost, Bob Scheer, Chris Hedges, James North, and Sharon Lerner; so many have reported truthfully and comprehensively about this case and what's happening to me, and I salute them. But it's very obvious that some of the bigger media outlets in our country are staying away from the story under pressure for Chevron.

Ralph Nader: Tell us about some of the indigenous leaders who so valiantly stood ground against Texaco and later Chevron, especially an indigenous leader, Emergildo Criollo of the Cofan Tribe.

Steven Donziger: Yeah. Well, thank you, Ralph, for the question. I mean, you know, I've had the honor and privilege of really being able to develop close relationships with a lot of the indigenous leaders in this area. I've been down there many times over the years. And Emergildo is a special leader, man of great dignity, lost two children to the oil contamination to cancer. He's one of the people who tells the story about how the Texaco engineers told the indigenous people that the oil was like milk and had vitamins. And, you know, people need to understand that people like him, Emergildo, Berto Payahuaje, you know, Luis Yanza. So many. Mariana Jiménez, you know, Rosa Moreno, the nurse who recently died of cancer, my good friend. This is a citizens’ campaign. It's not Steven Donziger. It's the people of Ecuador who have organized themselves. I'm talking about indigenous leaders in non-indigenous rural community leaders who live in the same area and have united, who hold this company accountable for the world's worst oil-related contamination. These people suffer immeasurable harm just trying to survive day to day in an environment where you cannot get clean water and people do not have money to buy bottled water. So you're basically forced. It'd be like when you go to your tap in your home here in the United States, every time you turn it on, you have no choice but to drink something that you know is at least a little bit contaminated with cancer-causing substances, but you have no choice, because you can't die of thirst. The physical impact of that and the psychological stress of knowing that is enough to really undermine cultures and undermine life and destroy a lot of the economic activity and hope for the future. And, you know, it's an awful situation. So many people have died of cancer, because Chevron has refused to abide by this court judgment that it clean up its toxic toxins that it dumped. But, you know, I will say, and I salute the people of Ecuador and the people I know for sticking together, for their tenacity, their determination, and the fact that they continue fighting for justice and for their own survival. I mean, it's pretty impressive and pretty extraordinary, and it needs to be saluted and really studied as an example of what citizens can do to create major change in this world.

Ralph Nader: Chevron has essentially fled the jurisdiction. They are a fugitive from justice.

Steven Donziger: That’s true.

Ralph Nader: From Ecuador. Are law enforcement officials in Ecuador pursuing Chevron on any possible count?

Steven Donziger: Well, Chevron's influence at the higher levels of Ecuador's government is significant. So my answer to your question is not that I know of. Although obviously if Ecuador had a government that was really responsive to its own citizens, they would be looking at those options.

Ralph Nader: Well, before we conclude, we're running out of time. How about input from Steve and David?

Steve Skrovan: Yes. Steve, I'm curious. Are you still under house arrest? I wasn't clear of that. Are you still under house arrest?

Steven Donziger: Yes, I am under house arrest. It's been 589 days today. Oh, I had an argument last week before the Second Circuit to get off house arrest and that the panel still has not ruled. So it's possible I'll get a decision soon that might give me some good news, but we'll see.

Steve Skrovan: I want to know what has that been like? Is this like an ankle bracelet kind of thing? What can you do? Where can you go? What has the psychological cost been for you personally?

Steven Donziger: Oh, it's been significant. You know, I'm strong and resilient and optimistic, but it's been significant. I mean, first of all, I have a 14-year old son who has to watch his father wear an ankle bracelet 24/7. I sleep with it. I eat with it. I bathe with it. It allows the state to monitor my whereabouts 24/7 even as I move about my own apartment. I can't even go out in the hallway to, you know, to get the newspaper without permission of a pretrial services officer. I need 48 hours advanced permission to leave my apartment. And I can only do it for very narrow purposes like school-related activities and, you know, legal meetings and medical meetings. I do get out a little bit, but it's always extremely restricted. I can't, you know, be a normal father and I can't be a normal citizen of this country. My freedom has been taken away from me. You know, I get that there's other people around the world who have it a lot worse off than me. There's many environmental defenders who were murdered in other places. But in the United States of America, this is unprecedented, you know, to lock up a lawyer for almost two years without trial on a misdemeanor after he won a successful human rights lawsuit against an oil company. And he's being prosecuted by an oil company law firm, not by the government. And you know, everyone needs to pay attention to this because this is a playbook that if we let it happen, the Big Oil companies as they face declining profits and structural changes as we transition to clean energy, are going to be using this more and more against its critics. So they can, you know, really extract every last dollar of profit, you know, out of a business model that unfortunately is destroying our planet. So there's a lot of anger in the oil industry, and I think it's reflected in how I'm being treated. But man, this is a playbook that can be used in a lot of contexts, not just those who deal with oil companies, but people who deal with powerful corporations all over. And we have to protect me--both because I need protection; I need to survive this. But also because there's a much larger principle involved here that affects everybody.

Ralph Nader: Tell us if people want more information, Steve, what is your website?

Ralph Nader: Please go to freedonziger.org. freedonziger, FREEDONZIGER, all one word, (dot) org. And also if people want to help, I have a defense fund. This is enormously expensive to deal with. It's called donzigerdefense.com, DONZIGERDEFENSE, one word (dot) com. And on my defense site, you can make a small donation or a large donation or no donation, but just sign up anyway and you'll get a regular newsletter giving you updates about the case. And finally, I can be followed on Twitter @SDonziger where I do regular daily updates about the comings and goings of the case and my situation. I need all the support I can get. Again, please go to freedonziger.org to get involved.

Ralph Nader: And we're going to put on our website, the judicial code of conduct for federal judges, so listeners can further compare what the standards are for judicial behavior with what's been going on in this legal trial. Well, we really have run out of time. And for your 25 years and continuing work in this area, the story is not over. It could boomerang against Chevron. It could boomerang against the judiciary and the corporate law firms. It could become a case study in law firms and law schools. It could become a documentary. We could get some long overdue intervention from Congress as Bruce has pointed out. So we thank you for continuing this battle, because you've got to believe, the best is yet to come, Steve Donziger. Thank you.

Steven Donziger: Thank you so much, Ralph and team. Really appreciate the opportunity. Thank you again.

Steve Skrovan: We've been speaking with Steven Donziger. We will link his work at ralphnaderradiohour.com as well as his legal fund. Now let's take a break and check in with our corporate crime reporter, Russell Mokhiber.

Russell Mokhiber: From the National Press Building in Washington D.C., this is your Corporate Crime Reporter, “Morning Minute” for Friday, March 26, 2021, I'm Russell Mokhiber.

The banning of menthol cigarettes, the mint-flavored products that have been aggressively marketed to Black Americans, has long been an elusive goal for public health regulators. But now there is a growing momentum in Congress to enact the ban. That's according to a report in the New York Times. Black smokers smoke less, but die of heart attacks, strokes and other causes linked to tobacco use at higher rates than White smokers do, according to the [US] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And 85% of Black smokers use Newport [cigarettes], Kool [cigarettes] and other menthol brands that are easier to become addicted to and harder to quit than plain tobacco. The African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council has been pushing for menthol bans in communities across the country. [New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island have enacted bans on flavored e-cigarettes; Massachusetts was the first state, followed by California, to ban both menthol and flavored cigarettes] The Council says that “menthol cigarettes and cigarillos are main vectors of disease and death among Black Americans.” For the Corporate Crime Reporter, I'm Russell Mokhiber.

Steve Skrovan: Thank you, Russel. Welcome back to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. I’m Steve Skrovan along with David Feldman and Ralph. And that's our show. I want to thank our guests again, Steven Donziger and also Bruce Fein for sitting in. For those of you listening on the radio, that's our show. For you, podcasts listeners, stay tuned for some bonus material we call “The Wrap Up”. A transcript of this show will appear on the Ralph Nader Rader Hour website soon after the episode is posted.

David Feldman: Subscribe to us on our Ralph Nader Rader Hour YouTube channel. And for Ralph's weekly column, it's free; go to nader.org. For more from Russell Mokhiber, go to corporatecrimereporter.com.

Steve Skrovan: And Ralph has provided two separate form letters to send to your representatives demanding they take action on corporate crime and taxing the rich. Just click on the clearly marked boxes on the right-hand corner of the Ralph Nader Rader Hour landing page and it's all laid out there for you to fill in and personalize any way you want. Go to ralphnaderradiohour.com and take action.

David Feldman: To support The American Museum of Tort Law, check out their online shop at store.tortmuseum.org. They have autographed books, “Flaming Pinto” coffee mugs, and other unique gifts for all you, lawyers, law students, paralegals and tort fans out there.

Steve Skrovan: And for an independent news source that believes people are more important than corporations, go to populous.com to read or subscribe to the Progressive Populist.

David Feldman: The producers of the Ralph Nader Rader Hour are Jimmy Lee Wirt and Matthew Marran. Our executive producer is Alan Minsky.

Steve Skrovan: Our theme music Stand Up, Rise Up was written and performed by Kemp Harris. Our proofreader is Elisabeth Solomon. Our associate producer is Hannah Feldman.

David Feldman: Join us next week on the Ralph Nader Rader Hour. Thank you, Ralph.

Ralph Nader: Thank you, everybody. And listeners who want to help make the New York Times a better newspaper, urge them to cover the Donziger-Chevron case; just call the switchboard at the New York Times (212) 556-1234 and ask for the news desk. That's (212) 556-1234 and ask for the news desk.
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Re: Steven Donziger Under House Arrest After Suing Chevron

Postby admin » Thu Dec 16, 2021 3:56 am

Steven Donziger <sdonziger@donzigerandassociates.com>
FREE DONZIGER
Wed, Dec 15 at 11:44 AM

I write to share a stunning update: after 45 days spent largely in lockdown in Danbury prison, I am now out. Prison authorities furloughed me last Thursday to serve the rest of my six-month sentence (now 131 days) at home — just like I had spent the previous 813 days before prison due to the unprecedented Chevron-engineered targeting of me.

Needless to say, I am thrilled by this turn of events.

But one thing I want to say immediately: thanks to each of you. I felt your presence every minute of every day behind bars suffering through what undoubtedly was the biggest challenge of my life. Conditions were abysmal. But I and many of my new mates on the inside knew there was a powerful force for accountability flowing like a wave over the prison and that it came from the movement we have built together. And I think that movement had a great deal to do with my early release.

Steven Donziger
@SDonziger
With son Matthew at home following my early release yesterday from Danbury prison.
I feel so fortunate to be able to return so soon to the most important young man in my life.
Image
6:12 PM 12/10/21


I feel so fortunate to be able to return so soon to the most important young man in my life.

Your presence on the outside made me feel safer on the inside. More empowered. More hopeful, more focused, and more productive. In fact, I believe I emerged even stronger because of your support. Without that support, I certainly would not have written a 250-page journal while on the inside that documents much of what I saw and felt as I came to grips with both the injustices and the teeming humanity that bubbled up around me.

While my furlough is a great victory for all of us, I am still not free. President Biden and Attorney General Garland still have not acted to dismiss the case or comply with the United Nations order that I be released and compensated after finding my detention to be illegal and the product of a “staggering” level of bias by Judges Preska and Kaplan.

We now must build off this victory and maintain the pressure so I can be fully free. Donate today to help put an end to my unprecedented Chevron-financed corporate prosecution once and for all – and help us force Chevron to pay the historic $10 billion Ecuador pollution judgment so thousands of lives can be saved. →

There are no mirrors in prison. I sort of forgot what I looked like. When I took my shirt off at home for the first time, I saw someone who was almost emaciated. I had lost 20 pounds in prison due to a scarcity of food. There was also a mind-deadening information blackout: no Internet access, no newspapers, and extremely limited email that the residents had to pay to use. Visits were virtually impossible. And the people I left behind — people like Fats, Tommy, D-block, Rail, Ruben and Rabbi — are all still there, dealing with a level of treatment (despite best efforts by some staff to help) that often was extremely dehumanizing. Almost all are serving extremely long sentences for non-violent crimes.

One thing that was reinforced for me while in prison is that all injustice is intimately connected. While the Indigenous peoples of Ecuador suffer at the hands of Chevron, literally 70 million Americans have a criminal record in a country where our prison system has become a business. I saw this in prison: there is almost no incentive to let people go early, and every economic incentive to keep them as long as possible and to make money from them while they are there.

Many are asking how I got out. I’m not really sure, but I want to say that prison authorities are professional. They saw my "paperwork" which indicated a minor misdemeanor. I was the only person among all 900 men in Danbury that had not been convicted of a felony. They realized I should not have been in prison. And unlike Judge Preska, they had no incentive to abuse their mandate to do Chevron's bidding.

Finally, I believe public pressure matters. Amnesty International's Urgent Action led to hundreds of letters from around the world flowing into the prison. There were days an entire mail bin was brought to our unit filled with dozens of letters and books sent in support. Staff took notice. I was treated with respect. And the fact 10 Congresspersons also were demanding my release was huge. Not to mention pressure from Amazon Watch, Global Witness, Greenpeace and so many other organizations.


Again, thank you. We did this together.

As I sit here today, I realize how much pain I carried out of Danbury. I've been weeping on and off for days. Weeping at how close we are to the edge in modern-day America. How corporate prosecutions engineered by the fossil fuel industry in the name of the “government” can now happen; how Indigenous peoples in the Amazon can be utterly devastated by an American oil company that flouts the law; and how average citizens can be destroyed by our "justice" system while the judges who make it happen enjoy their holidays with nary a worry.

Going forward, there is now an incredible amount of opportunity. Big media — including CNN, the New York Times, and MSNBC — are now covering the case. Lawyers from all over the world want to join our team. And thousands of people globally have donated small amounts to our defense fund that have allowed us to grow even stronger!

That said, by the end of the year, we need a major infusion of resources to protect me and my family from Chevron's attacks. We also must continue to demand my immediate freedom — that is, to put an end to this corporate prosecution so it never happens again. We also must ensure we have resources to go after Chevron and force the company to comply with the historic Ecuador judgment. Please donate $2500, $1000, $750, $500, $250, $100, $50 or whatever you can.
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Re: Steven Donziger Under House Arrest After Suing Chevron

Postby admin » Thu Dec 16, 2021 4:01 am

UN rules that Steven Donziger house arrest violates international laws
by Zack Budryk
The Hill
09/30/21 04:41 PM EDT 134

The United Nations human rights body said Thursday that a former environmental lawyer’s house arrest on contempt charges was illegal and called on the U.S. to release him.

Steven Donziger in the early 1990s sued Texaco on behalf of a group of Ecuadorean farmers and indigenous people, alleging major environmental harms by the energy company. An Ecuadorean court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in 2011 and ordered Chevron, which had since acquired the company, to pay $9.5 billion.

In a countersuit in the U.S., Chevron accused Donziger of bribery and witness-tampering. Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled in Chevron’s favor, and Donziger incurred the contempt charges during the appeals process.

When federal prosecutors with the Southern District of New York declined to prosecute Donziger on these contempt charges, Kaplan took the unusual step of appointing private attorneys instead.

Rita Glavin, one of the attorneys, had previously worked for a firm that Chevron retained. A U.S. district judge found Donziger, who has been under house arrest for nearly two years, guilty of the contempt charges in July.

In its ruling, the U.N.’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WAGA) called Donziger’s detention “arbitrary,” noting that the maximum penalty for Donziger’s charges is six months.

This, they wrote, “means Mr. Donziger, having been under house arrest since 6 August 2019, has already served the maximum possible penalty some four times over. In this regard the Working Group recalls that the Human Rights Committee has argued that ‘[I]f the length of time that the defendant has been detained reaches the length of the longest sentence that could be imposed for the crimes charged, the defendant should be released.”

The working group’s five international jurists said they were “appalled” by the case and said “the charges against and detention of Mr. Donziger appears to be retaliation for his work as a legal representative of indigenous communities, as he refused to disclose confidential correspondence with his clients in a very high profile case against multi-national business enterprise.”


Donziger’s legal team said in a statement that they will file the jurists' finding with Judge Loretta Preska, the judge who found Donziger guilty in July.

“This is an extremely significant and courageous decision by five international jurists who confirm what we have been saying for over two years: Steven Donziger has been subject to an illegal detention orchestrated by Chevron and two ideologically-driven trial judges who are retaliating against him for winning a major pollution judgement in Ecuador against a powerful U.S. corporation,” attorney Martin Garbus said in a statement.
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Re: Steven Donziger Under House Arrest After Suing Chevron

Postby admin » Thu Apr 28, 2022 8:33 am

Free After 993 Days: Environmental Lawyer Steven Donziger on Leaving House Arrest & His Fight with Chevron
by Amy Goodman
Democracy Now
APRIL 26, 2022
https://www.democracynow.org/2022/4/26/ ... dor_amazon

GUESTS: Steven Donziger, human rights lawyer who successfully sued Chevron in Ecuador for dumping oil and toxic waste in the Amazon.

We speak with human rights and environmental lawyer Steven Donziger, who was released Monday from nearly 1,000 days of house arrest as part of a years-long legal ordeal that began after he successfully sued Chevron on behalf of 30,000 Ecuadorian Amazonian Indigenous people. Donziger calls his misdemeanor sentencing and arrest “a retaliation play by Chevron and some of its allies in the judiciary,” meant to intimidate other human rights advocates and lawyers from pursuing environmental justice. “Chevron tried to use me as what I would say is a weapon of mass distraction so people wouldn’t focus on the environmental crimes they commited in Ecuador,” continues Donziger, who says, “I didn’t really understand freedom until it was taken away.”

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

We end today’s show with human rights and environmental lawyer Steven Donziger, who has just been released from nearly a thousand days of house arrest as part of a legal ordeal that began after he successfully sued Chevron on behalf of 30,000 Ecuadorian Amazonian Indigenous people for dumping 16 billion gallons of oil into their ancestral land. In 2011, Ecuador’s Supreme Court ordered Chevron to pay $18 billion in a landmark ruling seen as a major victory for corporate accountability. But Chevron refused to pay or clean up the land. Instead, it launched a legal attack on the ruling, targeting Steven Donziger.

Last year, the judge in the case found Donziger in criminal contempt of court after he refused to turn over his computer and cellphone, sentencing him to six months in prison for contempt of court — a misdemeanor. In an extremely unusual legal twist, the judge had appointed a private law firm with ties to Chevron to prosecute Donziger, after federal prosecutors declined to bring charges. After 45 days in prison, he returned to house arrest — until Monday, when he finished his sentence and was released, after about a thousand days under house arrest. Last night he had a block party in Manhattan celebrating his freedom.

We welcome you to Democracy Now!, Steven Donziger. How does it feel to be free?

STEVEN DONZIGER: Thank you, Amy, for that introduction. It feels wonderful. You know, honestly, I didn’t really understand freedom until it was taken away. We take it for granted.

And, you know, what happened to me — and, more importantly, the people down in Ecuador who I represent, who are still suffering tremendously from toxic pollution caused by Chevron — it was just something that I think was entirely inappropriate and unethical, and I don’t think I should have spent a day in detention, as a successful human rights lawyer. But there was a — it was a retaliation play by Chevron and some of its allies in the judiciary.

You know, I dealt with it. We built our campaign even stronger during my time in detention. It was not fun. It was painful for me and my family. But we’re thrilled that that phase of this battle is over, and we’re ready to move on to the next part, which is really try to get the judgment that the people of Ecuador won complied with by Chevron so they can clean up the toxic pollution on their ancestral lands. That’s where we’re going to be focused now.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Steven, are you still a prisoner of Chevron? You’ve been disbarred from practicing law in New York. Can the law firm, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, still come for you?

STEVEN DONZIGER: You know, I don’t know. I just want to be clear, though: I have been disbarred. It was all based on this Chevron retaliation case, you know, carried out by the Gibson Dunn law firm, that was largely based on the testimony of an admitted lying witness that Chevron paid a bunch of money to and coached for 53 days. The judgment in Ecuador has been validated by multiple appellate courts, including the Supreme Courts of Ecuador and Canada, for enforcement purposes. Chevron still faces enormous risk.

My disbarment was based on a finding of one judge here in New York who contradicted the findings of 28 appellate judges in Ecuador and Canada. But on that basis, I had my law license taken without a hearing. So one of the things I’m going to be focused on is getting my law license back. That said, I’m still in a position to advocate to help my clients. I’m not going to court anyway. There are other members of our legal team that play that particular role. But it is important to establish the principle that a human rights lawyer who does this kind of frontline important human rights work and Earth defense work not be disbarred, not be jailed for doing his or her job. And that’s what happened to me.

And I will say the larger issue — you know, this case goes well beyond me. I want to be very clear about that. Chevron tried to use me as what I would say is a weapon of mass distraction, so people wouldn’t focus on the environmental crimes they committed in Ecuador. This goes way beyond me, because, ultimately, if we allow this type of private corporate prosecution — I was prosecuted, by the way, not by the U.S. government, which rejected the charges against me that were filed by a federal judge, who then appointed a private law firm that had Chevron as a client. And that was my prosecutor, which explains this extraordinary length of detention for a misdemeanor. You know, I was in detention 993 days for a misdemeanor crime. I assert my innocence, but even if I were guilty, the maximum sentence is 180 days. So why was I in for 993 days?

So there were a lot of irregularities here that we plan to challenge and try to correct. But, ultimately, this was really about a corporate capture, I believe, of an element of our federal judiciary in retaliation for my work. And that’s a playbook that I think the industry — the fossil fuel industry, that is — plans to continue to use against lawyers and activists who are a little too successful in [inaudible] —

AMY GOODMAN: Steven, we’re going to have to leave it there because we’ve come to the end of the show and the end of your Zoom capacity, it sounds like. Steven Donziger is a human rights lawyer who successfully sued Chevron in Ecuador for dumping oil and toxic waste in the Amazon, just off house arrest after nearly 1,000 days.
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