Steve Donziger attempts to extort billions from Chevron
First Gasland, now another eco-documentary discredited.
Plaintiffs' Experts Say 'No Evidence' For Billions In Damages Against Chevron http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2013/04/12/plaintiffs-experts -say-no-evidence-for-billions-in-damages-against-chevron/
Beltman’s affidavit appears carefully constructed to inflict the maximum damage upon Donziger, a former journalist who initiated the lawsuit in 1993 after graduating from Harvard Law School. Chevron filed a civil racketeering suit against Donziger and Stratus, accusing them of fabricating the evidence in the Ecuador case as part of a multibillion-dollar shakedown scheme. The Stratus executives submitted their statements as part of a settlement ending the lawsuit against them.
In his statement, Beltman describes a process orchestrated by Donziger and financed by Joseph Klein, a Philadelphia plaintiffs’ attorney who poured millions of dollars into the case only to quit in disgust in 2010, saying Donziger’s misconduct made it “highly unlikely that any court in the United States or elsewhere would ever enforce any judgment” he might obtain.
Joe Kohn was just the first of a series of financial backers who have been disappointed by Donziger’s Fitzcarraldo-like quest for riches in the jungles of Ecuador. He’s also enticed law firms including Motley Rice and Patton Boggs in Washington to sign on to the case, although Chevron has thus far refused to negotiate the settlement that would reward all the participants with a significant chunk of any money they obtain.
A second affidavit by Ann Maest, managing scientist at Stratus, backs Beltman’s allegations that Donziger orchestrated the process of constructing the damages estimate. Maest says there was no evidence of petrochemicals migrating from waste pits at the abandoned drilling sites, undermining Donziger’s claim that villagers were being poisoned by chemicals in their drinking water.
An attempt to sue Chevron subsidiary in Canada was thrown out. These lawyers are psychopathic morons.
Chevron’s win in Ontario http://opinion.financialpost.com/2013/05/02/peter-foster-chevrons-win- in-ontario/
Why are the plaintiffs pursuing their case in jurisdictions apart from the U.S.? Because their claims have already been declared fraudulent by courts there, and Chevron is pursuing a racketeering charge against Mr. Donziger and co. which is due to start in Manhattan in October.share
The plaintiffs’ case has received further hits from a former Ecuadorian judge who came forward in January to admit his role in orchestrating the fraudulent claim. Another of the plaintiffs’ environmental consultants admitted that evidence had been falsified from the outset. Plus one of the plaintiffs’ previous financial backers, a hedge fund named Burford Capital, accused the plaintiffs’ U.S. and Ecuadorean lawyers of fraud and misconduct.