The United States Appeals Court for the Second Circuit has denied the petitions from Steven Donziger and the Lago Agrio Plaintiffs (LAPs) seeking a rehearing of an August decision in which a three judge panel unanimously affirmed the racketeering judgment against Donziger and the LAPs.
In August, 2016, The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit unanimously affirmed a lower court decision, which found that the $9.5 billion judgment against Chevron Corporation in Ecuador was the product of fraud and racketeering activity, and unenforceable in the United States. The appeals court stated that there was “no basis for dismissal or reversal” of the district court’s judgment, noting that “[t]he record in the present case reveals a parade of corrupt actions by the LAPs’ legal team, including coercion, fraud, and bribery, culminating in the promise to Judge Zambrano of $500,000 from a judgment in favor of the LAPs.”
In 2014, Steven Donziger, the American lawyer behind a fraudulent lawsuit against Chevron in Ecuador, was found by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to have violated the federal Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), committing extortion, money laundering, wire fraud, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations, witness tampering and obstruction of justice in obtaining the Ecuadorian judgment and in trying to cover up the crimes committed by him and his associates.
