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Ghostwriting the $18.2 Billion Judgment

The ultimate $18.2 billion judgment against Chevron was not written by the presiding judge Nicholas Zambrano. Two prominent forensic linguists (see here (73 KB), here (2 MB) and here) (17 MB) compared the Feb. 14, 2012, judgment to Judge Zambrano’s known writings and found substantial differences in writing characteristics. They concluded that the judgment was not written by Judge Zambrano alone.

In fact, a former Ecuadorian judge recently acknowledged his direct involvement in orchestrating a fraudulent judgment against Chevron.

In a sworn declaration (169 KB) filed on January 28, 2013, in New York federal court, Alberto Guerra, who presided over the case when it was first filed in 2003, reveals that he was paid thousands of dollars by the plaintiffs’ lawyers and a subsequent judge, Nicholas Zambrano, for illegally ghostwriting judicial orders issued by Zambrano and steering the case in the plaintiffs’ favor. Guerra, who is no longer a judge, attests that the plaintiffs’ lawyers were permitted to draft the $18 billion judgment in their own favor after they promised to pay Zambrano a $500,000 bribe out of the judgment’s enforcement proceeds, and that Guerra then reviewed the plaintiffs’ lawyers draft for Zambrano before the judge issued it as his own.

Guerra’s declaration, which is corroborated by computer, bank and shipping records, as well as the plaintiffs’ lawyers’ own internal e-mails, provides a direct account of corruption that has tainted the trial for years.

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Falsified reporting of technical findings facilitated #Ecuador #fraud against Chevron, scientist for the #Ecuadorian plaintiffs testified: https://t.co/ynD1D00eXt https://t.co/4ETiia3BC0 AmazonPost photo
Members of indigenous communities in the Amazon in Ecuador would like to know: What happened to the more than $20M reportedly raised on their behalf by now-disbarred NY lawyer Steven Donziger? #FollowtheMoney
https://t.co/z9Zcht7zgh
#Factsmatter: An international arbitration panel found ‘no cogent evidence’ supporting #Ecuador’s claim that #Texaco failed to comply with terms of remediation in #Amazon. https://t.co/7TqQ6sJhik
The @WSJ sums this case up nicely, “[Steven Donziger] and his team fabricated evidence, promised $500,000 to an #Ecuadorean judge to rule in their favor, ghostwrote much of the final verdict and took other actions that ‘perverted’ the course of #justice. Mr. Donziger disputes the… https://t.co/soQ1qreULA
Shameless. Disbarred and convicted of criminal contempt of court for bribing an Ecuadorian judge in an attempted extortion scheme, @SDonziger is nonetheless accepting invitations to speak at #climate rallies. Read more about this adjudicated racketeer: https://t.co/5eac0lRmN7

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