WEBVTT - The Charge: Chevron Faces a Verdict 0:00:10.400 --> 0:00:20.240 When I know. This is Pablo Fajardo. He's the guy who, 0:00:20.360 --> 0:00:24.360 along with Luisianza, won the Goldman Prize back in two 0:00:24.360 --> 0:00:27.360 thousand and eight for his work fighting Texaco and then 0:00:27.520 --> 0:00:31.080 Chevron in Ecuador. Remember, Chevron took an ad out about 0:00:31.120 --> 0:00:35.280 how he and Luis were frauds. Fajardo was actually the 0:00:35.400 --> 0:00:39.040 lead attorney on the case against Chevron in Ecuador, but 0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:43.160 because Chevron targeted Donziger in its press push, he shows 0:00:43.240 --> 0:00:45.920 up less and less in stories about the case from 0:00:46.000 --> 0:00:50.200 twenty ten onward. But he's still working on it today. 0:00:50.680 --> 0:00:52.760 We're going to get into more of that as the 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:56.400 season goes on. But first a quick recap because we're 0:00:56.400 --> 0:01:01.040 halfway through this season and it's a very complicated story. Okay, 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:05.319 So to recap. From the late nineteen sixties to nineteen ninety, 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:09.640 Texico drilled for oil in the Ecuadorian rainforest. The company 0:01:09.720 --> 0:01:12.480 helped to start the oil industry there. A large group 0:01:12.520 --> 0:01:16.960 of both indigenous and non indigenous residents say Texico left 0:01:16.959 --> 0:01:20.200 a big mess and they should clean it up. An 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:24.319 Ecuadorian lawyer named Cristobald Bonifas first filed a suit against 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:28.880 Texico in New York in nineteen ninety three. When Chevron 0:01:29.040 --> 0:01:32.600 bought Texico in two thousand and one, it inherited this case, 0:01:32.680 --> 0:01:36.600 which was still going on. Like Texico before it, Chevron 0:01:36.640 --> 0:01:39.880 lobbied for the case to be tried in Ecuador. In 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:42.080 two thousand and three, the New York courts agreed and 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:46.039 the case was refiled, this time against Chevron in Ecuador. 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:50.200 At this point, Bonifas kind of fades into the background. 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:52.880 Donziger and Fijardos start to get a lot more involved, 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:56.360 and they start to bring worldwide attention to the case. 0:01:56.600 --> 0:02:00.160 But still it drags on for years and years and years. 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:03.120 When we left off last time, it was two thousand 0:02:03.160 --> 0:02:05.600 and nine. The plaintiffs were on a bit of a 0:02:05.640 --> 0:02:08.920 winning streak and Chevron was gearing up for a fight, 0:02:09.919 --> 0:02:13.320 or really another round in this fight. I didn't call 0:02:13.400 --> 0:02:17.240 this season Laluja munggla for nothing. In episode four, we 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:20.560 dug into the details of one particular tactic, filing a 0:02:20.600 --> 0:02:25.720 complaint before an international arbitration tribunal that happened in September 0:02:26.040 --> 0:02:29.040 two thousand and nine. Weeks before that complaint was filed, 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:33.280 Chevron released on YouTube a batch of videos taken with 0:02:33.440 --> 0:02:37.400 hidden spy cameras like those pen cameras that you see 0:02:37.400 --> 0:02:41.360 in novelty shops or advertised in skymall, teeny tiny cameras 0:02:41.440 --> 0:02:46.079 hidden inside normal looking pens. Chevron claimed the videos showed 0:02:46.120 --> 0:02:48.919 that the judge in the Ecuador case was being bribed. 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:53.000 It all had a very national Enquirer caught on tape 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:56.400 judge accepting bribes sort of vibe to it. In most 0:02:56.400 --> 0:02:59.880 of the tapes. An Ecuadorian man named Diego Borgia and 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:03.920 an American named Wayne Hansen. We're meeting with the guy 0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:05.919 who was the judge in the case at that time, 0:03:06.200 --> 0:03:10.320 Judge Juan Nuniez. Here's a tidbit from one of these videos, 0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:14.359 and just to note the audio quality is terrible because 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:15.440 you know pen. 0:03:15.320 --> 0:03:25.520 Cameras Spener who is maximum Santa fifty three. 0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:29.799 So to set up these meetings with Judge Nuniez, Borgia 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:33.760 and Hansen had claimed to be environmental remediation experts who 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:36.160 were tracking the case because there might be work in 0:03:36.240 --> 0:03:39.960 it for them. Eventually, when these videos came out, Judge 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:43.240 Nunia said, yeah, I met with these guys. I explained 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:46.119 the case to them and how Ecuadorian law works. None 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:49.480 of that's illegal. That all tracks with the tapes that 0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:53.400 he's in. He insisted he'd done nothing wrong, but still 0:03:53.560 --> 0:03:56.240 in September, right around the time Chevron was filing its 0:03:56.320 --> 0:03:59.920 arbitration claim, Nuniaz recused himself from the case because of 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:04.040 this whole scandal that set the trial back months, because 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:06.960 a new judge had to come on board, familiarize himself 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:09.800 with the case and read through thousands and thousands of 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:13.040 pages of documents and filings and transcripts, all of that. 0:04:13.320 --> 0:04:15.760 A couple weeks after all of this was in the news, 0:04:16.279 --> 0:04:19.600 the Associated Press published a story that poked a lot 0:04:19.640 --> 0:04:22.919 of holes in these videos, especially the credibility of the 0:04:23.000 --> 0:04:26.720 American Wayne Hansen. As the story unfolded over the next 0:04:26.760 --> 0:04:29.880 few months, it just kept getting weirder. It sounds more 0:04:29.920 --> 0:04:32.600 like a Cohen Brothers movie than a law case. And 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:35.359 that was the tip of the iceberg, that wild ride. 0:04:35.440 --> 0:04:59.640 Right after this quick break, I want to tell you 0:04:59.680 --> 0:05:02.880 about one of my favorite climate podcasts, Mothers of Invention. 0:05:03.839 --> 0:05:07.159 Their tagline is a man made problem with a feminist solution, 0:05:07.600 --> 0:05:10.839 so good, and Mothers of Invention is a climate justice 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:15.039 podcast like you've never heard before, joined former Irish president 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:19.120 Mary Robinson, comedian Maeve Higgins and series producer the Molly 0:05:19.200 --> 0:05:22.960 Kadi Kara as they celebrate black, brown and Indigenous leaders 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:26.640 all over the world fighting from the front lines. Of course, 0:05:26.839 --> 0:05:29.719 one of my personal favorites is their recent episode with 0:05:29.800 --> 0:05:33.200 Mary Annie's Hegler, my co host on Hot Take and 0:05:33.279 --> 0:05:36.360 my favorite person to listen to on climate justice. But 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:39.159 really I listen to every episode. They're all great find 0:05:39.160 --> 0:05:59.400 mothers of invention wherever you listen to podcasts. Quaene Hansen 0:05:59.440 --> 0:06:03.159 does a great job of playing the bumbling, confused American 0:06:03.279 --> 0:06:06.719 in these videos. Here he is asking how much longer 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:07.760 the trial might go on? 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:11.720 And we have much for the forty five more days 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:12.720 than the trial was over. 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:16.000 Again, Hanson claimed to be a remediation expert who was 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:17.760 hoping to get in on some of the work on 0:06:17.800 --> 0:06:21.320 that front once Chevron was found guilty, But in October 0:06:21.360 --> 0:06:24.440 two thousand and nine, the Associated Press reported that Hanson 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:28.560 was in fact in ex con with no verifiable experience 0:06:28.760 --> 0:06:33.400 in remediation work. That story read quote. Hanson, in two 0:06:33.440 --> 0:06:37.400 brief interviews, told AP he had water treatment projects in 0:06:37.440 --> 0:06:41.440 Mexico and Ecuador, but when a reporter questioned those claims, 0:06:41.600 --> 0:06:45.880 he hung up Chevron claimed to have no association with Hanson, 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:48.600 but the company did offer to pay for any security 0:06:48.680 --> 0:06:52.120 and legal fees that resulted from his role in these videos. 0:06:52.520 --> 0:06:55.120 But remember there was someone else in those tapes too, 0:06:55.720 --> 0:07:00.400 Diego Borgia. And Borgia was a different story. Initially, Chevron 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:04.039 described him as a quote unquote good Samaritan, but later 0:07:04.120 --> 0:07:06.960 it came out that Borgia and his wife, Sarah Portilla, 0:07:07.040 --> 0:07:10.800 had both worked for Chevron at various points. At that point, 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:15.000 Chevron updated their description of Borgia to a logistics contractor 0:07:15.040 --> 0:07:18.720 for them, but also Borgia, his uncle, and Chevron's attorneys 0:07:18.840 --> 0:07:23.320 had offices in a building that Borgia's uncle owned. In June, 0:07:23.400 --> 0:07:26.920 a couple months before the videos were released, Chevron moved 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:30.960 Borgia and his wife to the US. The company claims 0:07:31.000 --> 0:07:34.240 that was done to protect the Borgias. They rented the 0:07:34.240 --> 0:07:37.200 couple a house in California and paid them a stipend 0:07:37.240 --> 0:07:40.200 of ten thousand dollars a month for about two years. 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:43.000 We only know all this stuff because the plaintiffs hired 0:07:43.040 --> 0:07:46.080 a private investigator to look into Borgia and Hansen, which 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:48.680 turned up all kinds of stuff, including some tapes of 0:07:48.720 --> 0:07:52.800 their own audio recordings of calls between Borgia and an 0:07:52.840 --> 0:07:56.720 acquaintance that make Borgia seem like, well, let's say, not 0:07:56.840 --> 0:07:59.720 quite a good samaritan. Here's a moment from one of 0:07:59.720 --> 0:08:02.960 those tapes. You'll hear Borge's acquaintance first and then him 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:13.280 you can tip the balance to either side. His acquaintance says, 0:08:13.520 --> 0:08:17.480 so I had to, of course, and for either of 0:08:17.520 --> 0:08:19.720 the two sides. Look at how much it tipped just 0:08:19.840 --> 0:08:23.680 now says this was around the time that Nunia's had 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:25.120 just recused himself. 0:08:25.960 --> 0:08:26.800 And looking up for. 0:08:32.200 --> 0:08:34.360 What they haven't been able to do and how long 0:08:34.440 --> 0:08:38.280 a year or something, Borgia says they threw that judge 0:08:38.280 --> 0:08:49.520 out in what three days? Two days? There are several 0:08:49.559 --> 0:08:52.319 of these tapes, and some of them also called Chevron's 0:08:52.360 --> 0:08:57.079 scientific experts into question. Borza talks about collecting samples for 0:08:57.200 --> 0:08:59.880 the company, which he says he's been doing since two 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:02.920 thousand and four. He also claims to have set up 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:07.320 a bunch of supposedly independent labs to test samples for Chevron, 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:10.720 and documents that were submitted to the ECUADORI in court 0:09:10.880 --> 0:09:13.880 do show not only that Borges's wife worked for the 0:09:13.960 --> 0:09:18.319 lab that Chevron used to test contamination samples, but also 0:09:18.360 --> 0:09:21.800 that Borgia was handing some samples off directly to her. 0:09:23.080 --> 0:09:25.520 None of this looked good for Chevron, But by this point, 0:09:25.600 --> 0:09:27.640 late two thousand and nine, they had brought on the 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:31.400 law firm Gibson Done and lawyer Randy Mastro was busy 0:09:31.440 --> 0:09:35.800 gathering evidence of his own about the plaintiffs scientific experts. 0:09:36.360 --> 0:09:38.440 There were a series of wow moments. 0:09:39.000 --> 0:09:42.120 Here's Mastro talking to us via zoom from his place 0:09:42.160 --> 0:09:44.480 in New York describing what he dug up on the 0:09:44.520 --> 0:09:47.320 plaintiffs once Chevron brought Gibson dun in to help. 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:51.520 What are the very first of these subpoenas that we 0:09:51.520 --> 0:09:57.400 were able to issue in the United States was to 0:09:57.559 --> 0:10:05.960 compel the testimony of a scientific expert Steve Donziger had hired, 0:10:06.360 --> 0:10:10.000 named doctor Charles Combacher from Georgia. 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:14.600 If you're wondering how Chevron's lawyers were able to subpoena 0:10:14.679 --> 0:10:17.040 things from the plaintiffs when the case was still going 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:19.880 on in Ecuador, I get it. It seems very weird. 0:10:20.160 --> 0:10:22.920 Here's the deal. There's a section of the US Legal 0:10:22.960 --> 0:10:26.640 Code called Section seventeen eighty two, and it says, basically, 0:10:26.679 --> 0:10:29.719 if you're an American or an American company or organization, 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:32.720 and you're involved in a lawsuit in another country, and 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:36.400 there are documents or American witnesses that might help you 0:10:36.559 --> 0:10:41.080 in that litigation, you can subpoena them. That's what Master 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:44.200 used to get Combacher's deposition. 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:51.520 And he was supposedly played this expert in Ecuador confirming 0:10:52.000 --> 0:10:55.760 that based on the research and tests that he had done, 0:10:56.320 --> 0:11:00.000 that there was significant environmental contamination done in the Amazon. 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:07.920 But when we compelled doctor Combacker's testimony in Georgia, what 0:11:08.040 --> 0:11:14.280 he actually testified was that the report that Steve Donziger 0:11:15.240 --> 0:11:18.120 and his Ecuadorian lawyers submitted to the court in Ecuador, 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:26.079 what was not Combacker's conclusion that he had not in 0:11:26.200 --> 0:11:32.400 fast concluded that it was a significant environmental damage, and 0:11:32.480 --> 0:11:35.000 the work that he had done was further revealed that 0:11:35.960 --> 0:11:39.880 Donziger had asked him for signature pages separate from his report. 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:43.800 The plaint is, of course deny this. They say Combucker 0:11:43.880 --> 0:11:46.600 was fired, that he thought they owed him money, and 0:11:46.760 --> 0:11:50.800 this deposition was some sort of revenge. Donziger says Kalmbucker 0:11:50.960 --> 0:11:53.440 authorized the submission of his report and that he sent 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:56.880 his signature separately because he'd already returned home to Georgia. 0:11:57.000 --> 0:11:58.959 In any case, it was enough for Gibson Done to 0:11:58.960 --> 0:12:01.800 get to go ahead from a US judge District Court 0:12:01.880 --> 0:12:04.640 Judge Lewis a Caplan of the Southern District of New 0:12:04.720 --> 0:12:10.959 York to file more subpoenas. Next, Mastro went after Douglas Beltman, 0:12:11.440 --> 0:12:14.800 the executive VP from Stratus Consulting, that we heard from 0:12:15.000 --> 0:12:20.400 last time. It's a disgrace. They treated Ecuador like a 0:12:20.440 --> 0:12:25.080 trash heap. He also subpoenaed Beltman's colleague and Maeste. At 0:12:25.080 --> 0:12:29.000 issue is the report by Richard Cabrera, the court appointed expert. 0:12:29.480 --> 0:12:31.679 Remember I mentioned before that this guy was going to 0:12:31.760 --> 0:12:35.160 come up again and again. Cabrera and the Cabrera report 0:12:35.200 --> 0:12:39.640 were becoming increasingly contentious, in part because Donziger was talking 0:12:39.640 --> 0:12:42.280 about the report a lot in the press, and because 0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:45.360 it was Cabrera's report that said, this is how much 0:12:45.440 --> 0:12:48.840 Chevron should owe to clean up this mess, and it 0:12:48.920 --> 0:12:53.160 was in the many, many billions of dollars. According to Mastro, 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:56.400 Cabrera was supposed to be neutral and not tied to 0:12:56.480 --> 0:13:00.160 either side in the case, and he was increasingly finding 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:03.640 that that was not the case at all. Here's Master 0:13:03.760 --> 0:13:04.520 explaining more. 0:13:05.640 --> 0:13:11.920 We sought by subpoena the records and then testimony from 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:19.240 a firm that became a principal outside expert for Donziger Andess, 0:13:19.240 --> 0:13:31.000 Ecuadorian lawyers, Stratus scientists at Stratus, and when those records 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:36.280 were ordered produced pursuing too our subpoena, and they showed 0:13:36.320 --> 0:13:42.200 that the supposedly independent expert in Ecuador, who had been 0:13:42.200 --> 0:13:45.320 appointed by the court to be an objective, independent party 0:13:45.360 --> 0:13:48.760 in assessing environmental damage and how much there was and 0:13:48.840 --> 0:13:54.920 attributing it to two parties if there were found to 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:58.600 be environmental damage, that in fact that was not an 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:02.600 independent objective report, had been ghost written word for word 0:14:02.880 --> 0:14:03.840 by Stratus. 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:07.480 Donzegher says, there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for this. 0:14:08.280 --> 0:14:12.560 That allegation is just a bunch of bs on every level. 0:14:13.040 --> 0:14:18.360 Stratus did write or draft most of the Cabrera Report. Cabrera, 0:14:18.679 --> 0:14:21.600 though reviewed it, signed it. They worked together. There was 0:14:21.640 --> 0:14:25.320 a massive amount of information, you know, literally tens of 0:14:25.360 --> 0:14:28.800 thousands of chemical sampling results in any single individual would 0:14:28.840 --> 0:14:32.520 never have the capacity to pull that together analyze it 0:14:33.000 --> 0:14:36.520 by himself or herself. So we did what Chevron did 0:14:36.560 --> 0:14:39.440 and what's customary, and courts all over the world, including 0:14:39.440 --> 0:14:46.360 in the United States. We used our experts to support Cabrera, 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:49.200 who was also our expert, because we were the ones 0:14:49.200 --> 0:14:51.520 who asked for his report and Chevron did not. 0:14:51.920 --> 0:14:54.720 In fact, Donziger says Chevron was doing the same thing 0:14:54.760 --> 0:14:55.800 with their experts. 0:14:56.240 --> 0:15:00.000 So Chevron used the same method in support of its experts, 0:15:00.280 --> 0:15:02.840 you know, would use its US based experts to help 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:06.480 its equador and experts write their reports. And this was 0:15:06.520 --> 0:15:10.680 standard operating procedure under Ecuadoran law in terms of how 0:15:10.720 --> 0:15:14.640 expert reports were done in Ecuador in all cases, in 0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:15.800 particular this case. 0:15:16.280 --> 0:15:19.480 But Master thought the plaintiff's involvement with Cabrera was fishy 0:15:19.720 --> 0:15:24.080 and Kaplan a US judge agreed, So in May twenty ten, 0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:28.840 he okayd Masters next and possibly most critical move, a 0:15:28.880 --> 0:15:32.600 subpoena for all of the outtakes of the documentary, crued 0:15:33.200 --> 0:15:37.720 some six hundred hours worth of tape shot by documentary 0:15:37.720 --> 0:15:39.360 filmmaker Joe Berlinger. 0:15:39.720 --> 0:15:42.520 So you have this building block, you have what happened 0:15:42.520 --> 0:15:50.640 with Combacker. Simultaneous to this, there's proceedings are going on 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:54.840 to get documents and testimony from Stratus status officials. Right, 0:15:56.440 --> 0:16:01.120 Joe Berlinger had made a documentary Crude. It had been 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:08.040 on the film festival circuit, and the issue of whether 0:16:09.000 --> 0:16:15.920 Cabrera was an independent objective expert who'd done an independent 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:21.880 report and reached conclusions independently was critical in the Ecuadorian 0:16:21.880 --> 0:16:24.600 proceeding because it was the basis on which Donziger and 0:16:24.600 --> 0:16:28.000 his Ecuadori lawyers were asking the Ecuadorian court to impose 0:16:28.840 --> 0:16:35.040 billions in damages on Chevron. So Joe Burlinchard produces Crude, 0:16:35.440 --> 0:16:41.040 and it shows on the festival circuit, then it comes 0:16:41.080 --> 0:16:46.640 out on Netflix, and a curious thing was picked up 0:16:46.680 --> 0:16:52.800 by the Chevron team. There was a change in scenes 0:16:53.320 --> 0:16:58.600 from the film festival version to the Netflix version, and 0:16:58.680 --> 0:17:03.160 the scene that had been changed or deleted was a 0:17:03.200 --> 0:17:07.040 scene that showed someone supposedly working as an independent expert 0:17:07.119 --> 0:17:11.400 for Cabrera, was in fact meeting with the plaintiffs lawyers 0:17:11.840 --> 0:17:14.840 and their clients at a session that Joe Berlinger was 0:17:14.880 --> 0:17:17.520 Steve Donziger in attendance, and then by the time it 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:22.119 came out on Netflix, that scene had been deleted. 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:26.400 The filmmaker Joe Berlinger fought this subpoena and the characterization 0:17:26.520 --> 0:17:30.359 of his work is not journalism. It became a really big, 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:33.040 high profile First Amendment case in its own rate, and 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:35.840 we're going to get into that in future episodes, but 0:17:35.960 --> 0:17:38.479 for now, keep in mind this is all happening in 0:17:38.560 --> 0:17:43.320 twenty ten and heading into twenty eleven, and there's still 0:17:43.320 --> 0:17:46.360 no verdict in Ecuador yet. So you've got the international 0:17:46.480 --> 0:17:50.080 arbitration proceeding happening, then you've got all this seventeen eighty 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:53.920 two action from Mastro. Eventually he does get the crude 0:17:53.920 --> 0:17:57.360 out takes, and he fils more and more subpoenas. They 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:00.960 get Donziger himself for weeks of depice positions, and he's 0:18:01.000 --> 0:18:05.200 even required to hand over his personal diary and various 0:18:05.200 --> 0:18:09.080 correspondences between himself and the lawyers in Ecuador, him and 0:18:09.160 --> 0:18:14.679 Pablo Fajardo, him and various litigation financers. Everything. Again, this 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:17.960 is while the case is still going on in Ecuador. 0:18:18.800 --> 0:18:20.800 Even with all that, though, you. 0:18:20.800 --> 0:18:24.679 Know, it was very clear in i'd say December of 0:18:24.680 --> 0:18:28.800 two thousand and ten January twenty eleven that the case 0:18:28.880 --> 0:18:30.480 was going to end and they were going to lose. 0:18:30.560 --> 0:18:32.560 I mean, it was just obvious, you know, that all 0:18:32.600 --> 0:18:36.919 their little tricks had not worked and the case was 0:18:37.000 --> 0:18:40.840 ripe for decision the evidence against them was overwhelming and 0:18:40.920 --> 0:18:43.840 they were going to lose. So instead of just accepting 0:18:43.880 --> 0:18:49.119 that fact and appealing, they prior to the issuance of 0:18:49.160 --> 0:18:52.480 the judgment and Ecuador, they filed the RICO case against us, 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:55.880 describing what they thought was a criminal conspiracy to extort 0:18:56.040 --> 0:18:57.000 money from them. 0:18:57.600 --> 0:19:02.919 RICO stands for racketeer, influence and Corrupt Organizations. It's a 0:19:03.040 --> 0:19:05.199 US federal law that was created to deal with the 0:19:05.240 --> 0:19:08.680 mob and various other types of organized crime. In more 0:19:08.720 --> 0:19:12.160 recent years, it's been used against big corporations. For example, 0:19:12.240 --> 0:19:15.520 RICO has been invoked in a law of the opioid litigation. 0:19:16.119 --> 0:19:20.000 In its initial RICO complaint against Donziger and Fajardo and 0:19:20.040 --> 0:19:23.840 the plaintiffs, Chevron alleged that the legal team had cooked 0:19:23.920 --> 0:19:27.880 up a sham case and then set about falsifying evidence 0:19:27.960 --> 0:19:32.160 and bribing judges to make it stick. About two weeks 0:19:32.200 --> 0:19:36.400 after this RICO case was filed, the Ecuadorian courts finally 0:19:36.400 --> 0:19:41.640 delivered a judgment, eight years after the trial had started. 0:19:42.400 --> 0:19:46.160 Chevron was guilty and I owed more than eighteen billion 0:19:46.400 --> 0:19:47.760 dollars in damages. 0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:51.440 So when the decision in Ecuador came down in our favor, 0:19:52.720 --> 0:19:56.960 that came down two weeks after Chevron had already tried 0:19:57.000 --> 0:19:59.680 to preempt it by suing US under the Rico case. 0:20:00.400 --> 0:20:02.720 So when the decision came down in Ecuador, I was 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:09.160 in New York and, you know, with some other lawyers 0:20:09.200 --> 0:20:11.000 in the US who had been working on the case, 0:20:11.600 --> 0:20:14.120 and we got the news and we were obviously thrilled, 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:16.240 but we were also at that point dealing with the 0:20:16.320 --> 0:20:21.359 Rico case. So it was all confusing, and in a 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:24.439 weird way, Chevron had stolen the moment. 0:20:24.800 --> 0:20:27.080 The judge in Ecuador by this point, a guy named 0:20:27.119 --> 0:20:30.320 Nicholas Soembrano, made a point of saying that he had 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:35.199 not relied on either Combacker's report or the Kaber report, 0:20:35.480 --> 0:20:38.480 not because he'd found evidence of a problem with either one, 0:20:38.640 --> 0:20:41.639 but because he didn't want the controversy swirling around the 0:20:41.680 --> 0:20:53.160 two to undermine his ruling. Next time on drilled. 0:20:53.600 --> 0:20:56.800 So in the mornings, we would be lined up in 0:20:56.840 --> 0:20:58.960 this very long line. We had to get there very 0:20:59.000 --> 0:21:03.159 early in October November, so it was cold, so we 0:21:03.200 --> 0:21:05.280 would be all bundled up. We would be in this 0:21:05.520 --> 0:21:08.719 long line to get through security to get into the courthouse, 0:21:09.080 --> 0:21:11.960 and we'd have our blow ups and our boxes with 0:21:12.080 --> 0:21:17.399 us and our briefcases, and then you would see a 0:21:17.520 --> 0:21:25.600 row of five black Lincoln suburbans arrive with tinted windows, 0:21:25.640 --> 0:21:30.600 and out of it would come the senior management of Chevron, 0:21:30.880 --> 0:21:35.560 their head of litigation, their entire legal team, and they 0:21:35.600 --> 0:21:39.760 were ushered in through a separate entrance as VIPs, so 0:21:39.800 --> 0:21:41.440 they didn't have to stand in the line with all 0:21:41.480 --> 0:21:44.360 the rest of us. They would get out and go 0:21:44.600 --> 0:21:46.879 straight into the courtroom. So we would have been in 0:21:46.920 --> 0:21:50.239 line for forty five minutes when they would arrive and 0:21:50.320 --> 0:21:51.320 go straight through. 0:22:00.440 --> 0:22:05.160 Drilled is an original production of the Critical Frequency podcast Network. 0:22:05.560 --> 0:22:09.800 The show was created, reported, and written by me Amy Westerveldt. 0:22:10.040 --> 0:22:13.840 My co reporter this season is Karen Savage. Our editor 0:22:14.000 --> 0:22:18.560 is Julia Ritchie. The show's editorial consultant is Rika Murphy. 0:22:18.960 --> 0:22:24.480 Mixing and mastering by Mark Bush. Original score by b Beeman, 0:22:25.119 --> 0:22:29.000 fact checking by wodn Yan. Our artwork for this season 0:22:29.320 --> 0:22:33.400 was done by the super talented Matt Fleming. Special thanks 0:22:33.880 --> 0:22:37.719 to Trevor Gowen and Emily Gertz. If you are a 0:22:37.840 --> 0:22:41.840 Patreon subscriber, thank you your money is helping to make 0:22:41.880 --> 0:22:45.760 this season, And as a special thank you to Patreon members, 0:22:46.200 --> 0:22:51.280 we're providing a variety of benefits, including bonus content and 0:22:51.440 --> 0:22:55.200 early access to episodes in this season. If that sounds 0:22:55.200 --> 0:22:57.520 appealing to you, or you just want to support our work, 0:22:57.800 --> 0:23:01.320 go over to patreon dot com slash drilled and sign up. 0:23:01.920 --> 0:23:04.959 We also have some merch associated with that. You can 0:23:05.000 --> 0:23:08.679 find stories, documents, and photos related to this season on 0:23:08.800 --> 0:23:12.560 our website at drillednews dot com. That's it for this time, 0:23:12.600 --> 0:23:14.879 Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next week.