WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) - At least one Congressman is questioning the decision by six of his Democrat colleagues to get involved in the ongoing scandal of disbarred attorney Steven Donziger, who has been found by a federal judge to have used fraudulent means to score a massive verdict against Chevron in Ecuador.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) wrote in a May 9 letter to U.S. Attorney Merrick Garland that if he involved himself in the case against Donziger, it could potentially undermine the judiciary’s independence and the deliberate separation of powers upon which the nation’s democracy is built. Roy's letter is in response to six House Democrats writing Garland, urging him to review the Donziger case.
“We disagree with our colleagues' characterization of Mr. Donziger’s professional record,” Roy wrote. “Even before the current criminal contempt charges against him, the federal court found that he used fraud and bribery to obtain a judgment in a foreign country.”
As previously reported, Donziger won a $9.5 billion award in an Ecuador court after suing Chevron.
But in 2014, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan of the New York Southern District decided that Donziger had defrauded the judicial system in Ecuador with bribery, which the Second Circuit upheld on appeal.
He currently faces criminal contempt charges for not turning over evidence related to the alleged scheme.
“There was a lengthy factual record to support the criminal contempt charges initiated against Mr. Donziger by U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan, a distinguished trial jurist who was appointed to the bench by President Clinton in1994,” Roy stated in his letter obtained by Legal Newsline. “Mr. Donziger should face these charges in the same manner as any other defendant in our criminal justice system, devoid of political considerations.”
Roy was responding to an April 27 letter signed by Massachusetts Congressman James McGovern, who is the House Rules Committee Chair, as well as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jamaal Bowman of New York, Maryland's Jamie Raskin, Missouri's Cori Bush and Michigan's Rashida Tlaib in which they asked Garland to review the case.
“Mr. Donziger has been subjected to an unprecedented 600+ days of pre-trial house arrest while awaiting trial on a petty misdemeanor charge resulting from a discovery dispute,” the six Congressmembers stated in their letter to Garland, which is posted online. “We have deep concerns that the unprecedented nature of Mr. Donziger’s pending legal case is tied to his previous work against Chevron.”
Donziger is under house arrest because he disobeyed court orders, according to media reports.
U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska of the New York Southern District ruled in a May 10 court order after a hearing, “The lion’s share of the Subpoenas’ requests are paradigmatic 'fishing expeditions,' and for some Mr. Donziger has brought especially heavy tackle. But because Nixon, 418 U.S. at 700, makes clear that Rule 17(c) cannot be put to that purpose, the Court will not allow Mr. Donziger to use the Subpoenas to end-run around the rules governing discovery in criminal cases.”
Donziger stated in a May 16 Tweet on Twitter that Judge Preska barred him from testifying in his own defense.
“She just ruled that the many legal and ethical reasons I used to protect the confidentiality of my Indigenous clients is irrelevant,” Donziger posted. “Absurd and unjust—but our appeal grows stronger.”
It was announced on Facebook and Twitter that Actress Susan Sarandon, English songwriter Roger Waters, attorneys Ron Kuby and Marty Garbus, and Donziger himself would attend a rally scheduled before trial on May 17.
“Support me as we begin 2nd week battling Chevron's corporate prosecution,” Donziger tweeted on May 16.
Although Donziger characterizes himself as an environmental justice and human rights champion on his Facebook page, Roy wrote in his letter to Garland: “Mr. Donziger failed to comply with lawful court orders and the charges against him flow from his own course of conduct, not from the causes or persons he represented.”
Roy did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Donziger is accused of illegal and unethical activity, professional misconduct and racketeering including bribing judges and court-appointed experts, fabricating evidence, pressuring scientific experts to falsify reports, intimidating judges to make favorable rulings, ghostwriting court reports and even drafting and doctoring a final judgment.
All of it was designed allegedly to milk money from Chevron Corp. over its alleged pollution of the Ecuadorian Rain Forest in South America by oil drilling in the 1990s conducted by Texaco.
In 2011, a judge in Ecuador ordered Chevron to pay Donziger and the plaintiffs he represented $18 billion. That amount was later reduced to $9.5 billion on appeal, but because Chevron had no assets in Ecuador, Donziger was forced to seek the judgment through courts in the U.S.
Chevron fought back, presenting evidence Donziger considered courts in Ecuador to be corrupt and easily manipulated, and that the alleged pollution was not as bad as had been claimed. The oil company paid $40 million for cleanup in Ecuador and signed an agreement with the government there absolving it of any further liability.
Donziger meanwhile claimed he was the victim of a gigantic corporate revenge campaign.
In 2013, Chevron went after Donziger, launching a trial in New York charging him with racketeering and violations of statutes under RICO, the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
In March of 2014 the Court decided Donziger’s actions in the case were corrupt, noting it was so extraordinary it could normally only “come out of Hollywood.”
The court declared the $9.5 billion judgement against Chevron “fraudulent and unenforceable.” Donziger was ordered to pay $813,000.
Kaplan, who had presided over the RICO case, issued a 485-page finding in which he said Donziger had won his case in Ecuador by fraud and the bribing of an Ecuadorian judge who was promised $500,000 for a favorable ruling.
The Southern District of New York determined Donziger had orchestrated ill-gotten gains though coercion, bribery, money laundering, fraud and racketeering activity.
Kaplan ordered an attached motion that had previously been severely redacted to be made public.
The information alleges Donziger’s continued attempts to profit off the earlier Ecuador court judgement despite the RICO trial judgement, that he raised at least $2.4 million (for a total $40 million) and at least $1.5 million ended up in he and his wife’s bank account.
The findings said Donziger allegedly continued to profit by selling interest in the Ecuador court judgment, laundering money from the scheme by routing it through Canadian lawyers representing Ecuadorian plaintiffs. In addition the document charges Donziger with attempting to cover up evidence by asking a crony to erase emails about a potential investor.
He is also accused of refusal to transfer to Chevron funds traceable to the Ecuadorian court judgment and failing to abide by a "default judgement."
Donziger allegedly sweetened his deal by paying or sharing interest with celebrities and activists including Waters, Canadian activist Phil Fontaine, and Kevin Koenig, a senior strategist with Amazon Watch, a rainforest protection nonprofit based in Oakland, Calif.
Donziger has also been accused of attempting to “pressure” Chevron to make a settlement by funding and helping to sponsor an upcoming environmental conference titled “Indigenous Solutions for Environmental Challenges,” to be held Nov. 10-12 in Alberta, Canada. The conference is being organized through Kathleen Mahoney, the wife of Fontaine, who has an interest in the Ecuador judgement.
Donziger reportedly made a $50,000 payment for the conference and budgeted $200,000 to help sponsor it.
It is further alleged Donziger tried to promote a covert cooperative effort between the Assembly of First Nations in Canada, an aboriginal peoples’ protection nonprofit and the Amazon Defense Front, tasked with opposing Texaco and its operations in the Ecuador Rain Forest.