Chevron Lawyers Sanctioned Four Times in Eco-Disaster Case

For the fourth time, Chevron has been sanctioned for improper conduct in both U.S. and Ecuadorian courts. The sanctioned behavior ranges from attempting to overwhelm the Ecuadorian court by filing in a short time frame over a hundred motions -- some of which had been filed and ruled upon already -- to asking abusive questions of one of the plaintiffs' experts in an effort to intimidate him.

Andrea E. Neuman

Questioning by Gibson Dunn Attorney Andrea Neuman Found to Violate Colorado Bar Rule

Denver, Colorado (November 19, 2010) – A U.S. federal court has sanctioned Chevron and its lawyers at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher for abusive questioning during a deposition related to the oil giant’s multi-billion dollar liability in Ecuador for environmental contamination, according to court papers made available today.

The questioning that led to the sanctions was conducted by Andrea Neuman, one of Chevron’s lead lawyers on the Ecuador matter and a partner at Gibson Dunn’s office in Irvine, CA. Neuman is the fourth Chevron lawyer to be sanctioned recently in the Ecuador matter.

Separately, two Chevron employees are under criminal indictment in the South American nation for lying about the results of a purported environmental remediation that Chevron is using as a defense to the civil lawsuit over the contamination, which affects an area the size of Rhode Island.

Dozens of indigenous and farmer communities in Ecuador are suing the oil giant for deliberately dumping billions of gallons of toxic waste into Ecuador’s Amazon region when it operated a large oil concession from 1964 to 1990.

The contamination – which includes more than 900 abandoned toxic waste pits -- has plunged the region into a public health crisis that threatens thousands of people with cancer and other oil-related diseases, according to evidence before the court.

In the brief seeking the sanctions, the Amazon communities accused Neuman of using “blatant intimidation tactics” that “fall below the standards of professional conduct” required by Colorado and Federal rules in Colorado. The questioning occurred when Neuman deposed an American technical expert for the plaintiffs on Oct. 6 in Denver.

In a decision dated November 15, Magistrate Judge Michael E. Hegarty ordered Neuman and her colleagues at Gibson Dunn to refrain from asking questions in depositions involving the witnesses’ knowledge of criminal law statutes. Gibson Dunn is trying to characterize the expert work in Ecuador as fraudulent, a charge the Amazonian communities reject.

“This court in Colorado was willing to stand up to Gibson Dunn’s bullying and abusive tactics,” said Pablo Fajardo, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the Ecuador trial. “Chevron is using these tactics as part of its campaign to cover up its own fraud and wrongdoing in Ecuador.”

Just days ago a trial judge in Ecuador increased the fine for two Chevron lawyers found to be obstructing the trial. Alberto Racines and Diego Larrea, both of whom have worked on Chevron's legal team in Ecuador since the trial against Chevron began in 2003, were fined approximately $1,600 by Judge Nicolas Zambrano for repeatedly filing the same motions to delay the seven-year case.

In 2009, a third Chevron lawyer in Ecuador – Patricio Campuzano -- was sanctioned for the same reason. On August 5 – one day after the Ecuador court ordered both parties to submit their own damages assessments – Chevron filed 19 motions to nullify the order or the trial itself in a 30-minute period. Racines and Larrea then cited the failure of the trial judge to quickly rule on each of the motions as a basis to recuse him.

Just last week, Chevron’s Ecuador lawyers filed a long affidavit in court from a U.S. technical expert that was signed in 2004, one year after the trial began in Ecuador. Chevron then asked the judge to appoint a translator though Chevron generally provides its own translations of documents. Chevron, which operated several oil fields in Ecuador from 1964 to 1990, faces damages and clean-up costs of up to $113 billion.

The amount includes compensation for an estimated 10,000 potential deaths from cancer in the coming decades, according to reports submitted to the court by a team of prominent American technical experts. Chevron bought Texaco (which owned the Ecuador operation) in 2001 for $31 billion, apparently without adequately vetting the company for the Ecuador environmental liability, said Fajardo.

The lawsuit against Chevron, originally filed in U.S. federal court in 1993 but moved to Ecuador in 2002 at Chevron's request, accuses the oil giant of poisoning an area of rainforest that is home to five indigenous groups and thousands of farmers. The two Chevron employees under indictment in Ecuador, Rodrigo Perez Pallares and Ricardo Reis Veiga, have a preliminary hearing on their case scheduled for January 5, 2011 in Quito. Both are accused of defrauding Ecuador’s government by signing false documents certifying a sham cleanup in the mid-1990s.

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Chevron Sting Operative Tries to Quash Subpoena and Avoid Testimony

It appears lawyers for Chevron operative Diego Borja are being very careful not to deny the shocking charges that Borja made about the oil giant's evidence tampering in the multi-billion oil contamination lawsuit filed by indigenous tribes in the Ecuadorian rainforest. Two federal judges recently ruled that Borja and his video-taping sidekick Wayne Hansen can be deposed for questioning about their role to undermine the lawsuit. A few days ago Borja's lawyers filed a motion to quash the subpoena. In legal briefs, Borja never denies the charges. Details below.

Diego Borja in U.S. Court over Charges He “Cooked Evidence” in Ecuador Lawsuit

Amazon Defense Coalition

10 November 2010 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Karen Hinton at 703-798-3109 or Karen@hintoncommunications.com

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 10 – Self-described Chevron sting operative Diego Borja, scheduled to appear in court today in San Francisco, is conceding that the oil giant “cooked” evidence to defend itself against a multi-billion oil contamination lawsuit in the Ecuadorian rainforest, according to documents filed in court.

Borja’s lawyers today are scheduled to argue their motion to quash a subpoena requiring Borja to produce evidence relating to Chevron’s operations in Ecuador, where he said he ran a “dirty tricks” operation for the oil giant. Borja has emerged as a key figure in the Ecuador lawsuit – where Chevron faces damages of up to $113 billion -- after he was caught on tape saying the oil giant “cooked evidence” to produce lower levels of toxic contaminants.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs have long charged that Chevron is violating the law in Ecuador by trying to undermine the trial, which is in the South American nation at Chevron’s request after it was filed in U.S. federal court in 1993.

The vast majority of the voluminous scientific evidence in the trial points to Chevron’s culpability for massive oil contamination throughout an area the size of Rhode Island. The contamination is producing high rates of cancer and other oil-related diseases and has decimated indigenous groups, according to evidence before the court.

Chevron has repeatedly announced it expects to lose the case, and instead has attempted to persuade its shareholders that it can avoid enforcement of the judgment by claiming that the the court and the Ecuadoran legal system are not legitimate.

In papers filed with the federal district court in San Francisco, Borja’s lawyers do not deny that he made the claims the oil giant “cooked evidence”. Instead, they argue the statements are not relevant to the international arbitration claim between Chevron and the government of Ecuador, which is the legal basis for the subpeona.

U.S. District Judge Edward M. Chen earlier had ordered Borja to appear for a deposition, writing that there is evidence “suggesting that Mr. Borja was not an innocent third party … but rather was a long-time associate of Chevron whom Chevron would pay for any favorable testimony."

Borja was caught on tape last year telling a friend that Chevron had “cooked evidence” and that he had incriminating information that if known would cause Chevron to lose the lawsuit. Borja threatened to reveal the incriminating evidence if the company did not pay him for videotapes he secretly recorded with an accomplice that attempted to discredit the Ecuadorian judge presiding over the case.

In August 2009, Chevron released the videotapes to the news media and accused the judge of bribery, even though the judge did not attend the meeting where Borja and Hansen offered a bribe and there was no evidence that the judge engaged in misconduct. The plaintiffs charged the tapes were part of a Nixon-style dirty tricks operation launched by

Chevron’s lawyers.

Chevron later relocated Borja and his family to the United States at the company’s expense, where he remains on Chevron’s payroll while living in a luxury house in a gated community. Chevron is paying the fees of his lawyers.

Hansen, who is a convicted drug trafficker who served time in prison, also has been ordered to appear for a deposition but appears to have fled California and has not been served papers, according to sources.

For more information about Borja and Hansen’s sting operation, see http://chevrontoxico.com/news-and-multimedia/borja-report/.

The court documents supporting Borja’s subpoena demonstrate that:

· Chevron claimed in a press release that Borja was a “Good Samaritan,” when in fact he was working under the direction of Chevron’s legal team since at least 2004, and he himself said he was responsible for “dirty tricks” during the trial;

· Borja formed four dummy companies for Chevron to make the tests of soil and water samples that Chevron introduced as evidence in the litigation appear independent;

· Borja’s wife also worked for Chevron, and both he and his wife signed documents as representatives of Severn Trent Labs, a supposedly independent laboratory used to test soil and water samples from the litigation;

· Borja and his Chevron “boss” attempted to infiltrate a laboratory used by the plaintiffs using false names.

Among Borja’s quotes from the tapes cited in the legal papers is the following passage:

“… I have correspondence [with Chevron officials] that talks about things you can’t even imagine, dude… they’re things that can make the Amazons win this just like this [snapping fingers]… I mean, what I have is conclusive evidence, photos of how they managed things internally.”

The tapes of Borja, made by an Ecuadorian man named Santiago Escobar, have been turned over to authorities in Ecuador and the United States.

Escobar has said that Borja indicated to him that he carried out a series of clandestine “dirty tricks” operations for Chevron in Ecuador. Escobar said Borja told him he arranged “the biggest business deal of his life” that would “take down the lawsuit” and that he had received a “ton of money” from Chevron for his work.

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Chevron Dumped Toxic Formation Water Directly Into The Rainforest

From 1964 to 1990, Chevron dumped 18 billion gallons of toxic formation water directly into the rainforest instead of re-injecting it deep into the ground, the standard practice during this time in the United States and other countries. Without regard to the impact upon the environment and human health, Chevron designed this practice to save money. When Petroecuador took over the oil sites, the government-owned oil company began re-injecting all formation water, and today that practice continues. The press release below features a former Chevron oilfield worker who describes how the oil giant contaminated the drinking water and soil.

Video: Chevron Oilfield Worker Describes Toxic Dumping in Ecuador

LAGO AGRIO, Ecuador (Nov. 8, 2010) – A former Chevron oilfield worker has described in graphic detail how the company ordered its employees to systematically dump toxic waste into the waterways of the Amazon rainforest, according to representatives of the communities suing the oil giant.

In a video posted on the at website of the environmental group Amazon Watch, a former Chevron oilfield worker Jhinsop Martinez Erraez offers an eyewitness account of his employer’s criminal conduct. Erraez said the company conducted wholesale dumping of toxic waste products and industrial chemicals directly into the Ecuadorian rainforest from 1964 to 1990.

The revelations came in the second video posted by Amazon Watch that confirms Chevron’s oilfield misconduct in Ecuador, where the company faces a multi-billion dollar liability in a case brought by dozens of indigenous and farmer communities. The first video, also available here, documented how the company abandoned hundreds of waste pits that piped toxic waste into rivers and streams relied on by the local inhabitants for their drinking water.

Martinez had been an assistant for oil production operations at Dureno 1, one of the 378 well sites and oil production facilities built and operated by Texaco throughout an area of rainforest roughly the size of Rhode Island.

“The water was released contaminated with chemicals … the water dumped was yellow, totally contaminated because it was injected with two classes of chemicals, one to separate the water and another to separate the sediment” said Martinez. “The [oil] well was on a hill and drained down the mountainside and into a river.”

“And that was the routine we had twenty-four hours a day, taking care of that well,” Martinez said.

According to its own environmental audits, Chevron discharged at least 18 billion gallons of the “produced water” that Martinez describes in his interview. Produced water contains cancer-causing chemicals such as benzene, toluene, xylene and Polynuclear Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs).

Martinez worked for Chevron in the late 1980s, shortly before its contract with Ecuador’s government expired in 1992 and the company left the country. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. federal court in 1993 and moved to Ecuador in 2002 after Chevron agreed to accept jurisdiction there and abide by any judgment.

The top end of Chevron’s damages is estimated to be as high as $113 billion, according to a report submitted by six prominent American technical experts.

While Chevron does not dispute that it dumped the “produced water” as Martinez said, the company has said on multiple occasions that the toxic waste was treated before discharge. This claim is sharply contradicted by Martinez.

“[Texaco] gave the orders for us to drain the water out into nature – the contaminated waters. It didn’t go anywhere to be treated or anything like that,” Martinez told Amazon Watch. “It went directly through a pipe and drained down the mountainside, nowhere else. And, well, there was nothing you could do.”

Martinez’s statements are significant because as early as the 1930s it was standard oil industry practice in the United States to re-inject “produced water” deep underground rather than discharge it directly into the environment, where it could contaminate fresh water sources. Some “produced water” is discharged in the U.S. today, but only under a strict permitting process to guarantee that it does not contaminate water sources.

According to Martinez, neither of these approaches were utilized at Dureno 1 even though Chevron owned the patent on the technology used for underground reinjection.

Evidence before the Ecuador court demonstrates that Chevron’s dumping at Dureno 1 was replicated at all of the company’s production sites in Ecuador, said Pablo Fajardo, the attorney for the plaintiffs.

“It is clear that Chevron is responsible for the destruction of an entire region’s environment on which thousands of people depend for their sustenance,” said Fajardo.

Several peer-reviewed health evaluations have found elevated rates of cancer in the area where Chevron operated. One American expert, formerly associated with the RAND Corporation, authored a report report, concluding that up to 10,000 people faced a significant risk of contracting cancer in the coming decades because of the pollution.

“An entire generation has been forced to live with the reality of elevated risks of cancer, childhood leukemia, spontaneous abortions, and birth defects simply because Chevron didn’t want to spend the money to operate the way it would have in the United States,” said Fajardo.

Several experts believe the damage caused by Chevron in Ecuador dwarfs the harm generated by the BP Gulf spill, and is probably the world's largest oil-related disaster. The contamination will take at least a decade to remediate once funds are in place, according to experts.

A complete video of the Martinez interview, and associated transcripts is available here.

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How Big A Lie Will $8 Million Buy?

Han Shan of Amazon Watch answers the question of how big a lie $8 million will buy. He writes an interesting blog about a Chevron consultant who says the oil giant has never harmed the environment or human health in its oil exploration. Chevron has paid him at least $8 million, of which $5 million was for reports that said none of Chevron's contamination in the Ecuadorian rainforest is harmful to humans and environment.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2010

John Connor: Chevron's Well-Paid Liar in Ecuador

Along with our campaign allies at RAN & the tricksters at The Yes Men, we've been having some fun exposing Chevron's widely-panned new 'We Agree' ad campaign for the insulting greenwash it is.

But now, I want to turn back to some serious matters in the ongoing legal battle to hold Chevron accountable for massive devastation in Ecuador's Amazon rainforest region.

The Amazon Defense Coalition (ADC) issued a press release a few weeks back that highlighted a legal judgment against Chevron in Mississippi this past Spring. A jury verdict says that Chevron must pay $19 million dollars to five plaintiffs who were exposed to leaded gasoline fumes from leaking underground gas tanks owned by the company. According to the Associated Press, the daughter of the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit was born "severely mentally disabled, and the children of the other women suffer from respiratory conditions and learning disabilities."

What does this have to do with Ecuador and the mothers and children there who say Chevron is poisoning them?

Well, it was Chevron’s lead American expert in the Ecuador case John Connor who also testified in this recent Mississippi case. The U.S. jury rejected Connor's testimony, and a reading of the court transcriptunveils some very damning information.

An excerpt from the ADC press release:

In the trial -- which took place in Jefferson County, Mississippi -- Connor conceded on cross-examination that over almost two decades of work for Chevron he has never once concluded that the impact of his client’s operations has harmed even a single person, according to the court documents. Connor testified that he knew of no circumstance where “there were any injuries of individuals that were the responsibility of Chevron or Texaco.”

Connor also tried to exonerate Chevron by testifying that any contamination must have been caused by leaks from three storage tanks owned by a smaller company in the area, not the larger tanks owned by Chevron. But when confronted on cross-examination by evidence that he had misidentified the site from a state database, Connor admitted that he had never taken any steps to definitively verify that the gas tanks actually existed on the smaller company’s property.

John Connor: "Chevron paid me well to tell you this oil poses no danger to anyone."

Connor's testimony in Mississippi is very similar to his under-oath spin in the Ecuador case, intended to shore up Chevron's ludicrous argument that Ecuador's state oil company Petroecuador is responsible for all of the oil contamination in the region. This, despite Chevron admitting that it dumped more than 18 billion gallons of toxic wastewater into Amazon waterways depended upon by thousands of local people for drinking and bathing. This, despite the fact that Chevron (in the form of its subsidiary Texaco, of course) dug every one of the 900+ toxic waste pits that the company abandoned, many of which continue to leech poisons into the soil and ground water [see this video to understand exactly how that happens].

Under cross-examination in Mississippi, Connor also admits that Chevron has paid him "at least" $8 million over the years and estimates that $5 million of that has been for his work in Ecuador.

Ordering Chevron to pay $19 million in damages, a jury in Mississippi rejected his ludicrous and laughable testimony and concluded that this guy has no credibility. And I encourage you, dear reader, to read the transcript. Even on paper in a format as weird as a court transcript, he sounds evasive and slippery at best, and like he's simply lying through his teeth at other times.

Now, people who are following the monumental class action in Ecuador will know that Chevron has been in a legal frenzy over the last few months, filing legal actions against more than 20 people on the plaintiffs' side demanding 'discovery' ranging from turning over footage and files to sitting for depositions conducted by Chevron lawyers.

The plaintiffs, busy dealing with this legal onslaught by a company with nearly bottomless resources, have yet to be able to truly fight fire with fire and seek discovery from Chevron in the same way.

In September, a U.S. judge granted a request by the government of Ecuador to subpoena Chevron's self-avowed 'dirty tricks guy' Diego Borja. Borja, of course, was captured by a friend-turned-whistleblower talking about how the company "cooked evidence" in the trial in Ecuador, and suggesting that his "bosses" at the company were directing him.

Now, it's time for the plaintiffs to drop some subpoenas on some of these Chevron "bosses" so we can learn the truth about the dirty tricks and lies that Chevron has been employing to evade accountability for its devastation in Ecuador.

But the more I learn about Chevron's highly-paid and deceitful "expert" John Connor, I think he may be the perfect place to start.

– Han

Han Shan is the Coordinator of Amazon Watch's Clean Up Ecuador Campaign

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Chevron Lawyers Sanctioned and Fined for Obstructing Environmental Lawsuit in Ecuador

Last week Judge Nicolas Zambrano ruled that Chevron lawyers Alberto Racines and Diego Larrea tried to obstruct the multi-billion lawsuit the oil giant faces in Ecuador by repeatedly filling the same motions in an apparent effort to stall the case. Another Chevron lawyer Patricio Campuzano was sanctioned for the same reason in 2009. On August 5th, Chevron filled 19 motions to repeal the court’s order to submit new damages assessments and later argued the judge’s failure to rule quickly on those motions was a reason to recuse him. Given Chevron’s charges that previous damage assessments were fraudulent, one would think the company would welcome an opportunity to submit its own. Instead, facing a potential $113 billion liability, Chevron files a bunch of old motions already denied.

Three Chevron Lawyers Sanctioned For Obstructing Ecuador Environmental Trial

Facing $113 Billion in Potential Damages, Chevron Lawyers Seek Any Opportunity to Delay

Amazon Defense Coalition
29 October 2010 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Karen Hinton at 703-798-3109 or Karen@hintoncommunications.com

Lago Agrio, Ecuador (October 29, 2010) -- A trial court has sanctioned and fined three Chevron lawyers for obstructing the trial where Chevron faces a multi-billion dollar judgment for the deliberate dumping of 18 billion gallons of toxic waste, according to court papers made available today.

Alberto Racines and Diego Larrea, both of whom have worked on Chevron’s legal team in Ecuador since the trial against Chevron began in 2003, were fined by Judge Nicolas Zambrano this week for repeatedly filing the same motions in an effort to delay the seven-year Ecuador trial.

The judge ruled that the lawyers had used Chevron’s motions “to obstruct the trial.” In 2009, a third Chevron lawyer – Patricio Campuzano – was sanctioned for the same reason.
On August 5 – one day after the court ordered both parties to submit their own damages assessments -- Chevron filed 19 motions to nullify the order or the trial itself in a 30-minute period. Racines and Larrea then cited the failure of the trial judge to quickly rule on each of the motions as a basis to recuse him.

“The evidence clearly shows Chevron used illegal practices that resulted in the massive destruction of the rainforest in Ecuador and the decimation of indigenous groups and other local residents,” said Pablo Fajardo, who represents dozens of indigenous and farmer communities suing the oil giant for dumping more than 18 billion gallons of toxic waste into the Amazon rainforest.

“To help Chevron evade its obligations, Chevron’s lawyers are trying to sabotage the Ecuadorian legal system in addition to violating their professional obligations,” he added.

Chevron, which operated several oil fields in Ecuador from 1964 to 1990, faces damages and clean-up costs estimated at up to $113 billion. The amount includes compensation for an estimated 10,000 potential deaths from cancer in the coming decades, according to reports submitted by a team of prominent American technical experts.
Chevron is also accused of deliberately discharged highly toxic “water of formation” into the waterways of the forest that thousands of local residents depended on for their drinking water. The “water of formation” has a salt content ten times greater than ocean water.

Chevron bought Texaco (which owned the Ecuador operation) in 2001 for $31 billion, apparently without adequately vetting the company for the Ecuador environmental liability, said Fajardo.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. federal court in 1993 but moved to Ecuador in 2002 at Chevron’s request, accuses the oil giant of poisoning an area of rainforest the size of Rhode Island that is home to five indigenous groups. More than 900 unlined toxic waste pits built and abandoned by Chevron are spread out through the rainforest where they continue to contaminate groundwater and soils, according to evidence submitted to the court.
Chevron has repeatedly tried to delay the trial by bombarding the court in the Amazon town of Lago Agrio with hundreds of repetitive motions, a practice that has intensified in recent months.

Two Chevron employees currently living in the United States, Ricardo Reis Veiga and Rodrigo Perez Pallares, are under indictment in Ecuador for lying about the results of purported remediation in the mid-1990s. Evidence gathered during the trial shows that toxic waste pits the company claimed to have remediated are contaminated with cancer-causing toxins, sometimes hundreds of times higher than U.S. and Ecuadorian norms designed to protect public health.

Chevron’s misconduct in Ecuador and its abuse of the legal process has drawn increasing criticism.

A prominent Ecuador Bishop, Gonzalez Lopez Maranon, blasted the oil giant for failing to accept responsibility for the “pollution and death” Texaco caused in the country. The full text of his letter in English and Spanish, which was sent to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, can be found here.

Rep. James McGovern, the only member of Congress to have visited the disaster area in Ecuador, previously had written a letter to President Obama saying Chevron’s pollution had created “a terrible humanitarian and environmental crisis.” Dozens of members of Congress also have protested Chevron’s attempts to lobby the Obama Administration to cancel Ecuador’s trade preferences as retaliation for the lawsuit.

Just last week, Chevron’s new $100 million advertising campaign was widely mocked by environmental groups and the Yes Men, who created a website called www.chevronthinkswerestupid.com.

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Chevron’s Spies Deposed: Will They Tell The Truth?

Chevron employee Diego Borja and drug felon Wayne Hansen had their 15 minutes of fame over a year ago when Chevron unveiled videos that the two men had made secretly with a spy pen and spy watch. Chevron’s purpose in releasing the videos was to discredit an Ecuadorian judge, whom the oil giant expected to rule against the company in a multi-billion environmental lawsuit. The 007 caper failed but the fallout revealed other “dirty tricks” that Borja had orchestrated in Ecuador as well as Borja’s distrust of Chevron lawyers who he said promised him compensation for the videos. Borja confided to a friend that if Chevron did not pay him he would turn evidence against the company in the lawsuit. Soon the two of them will be under oath and will have to decide whether to tell the truth or take the Fifth.

Chevron Sting Operative Faces Deposition Under Federal Court Order
Judge Orders Wayne Hansen Deposed, Documents Turned Over as Scandal Tainting Oil Giant Widens

Amazon Defense Coalition
26 October 2010 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Karen Hinton at 703-798-3109 or Karen@hintoncommunications.com

Fresno, CA (October 26, 2010) – A federal court in California has ordered the deposition of Chevron sting operative Wayne Hansen, the convicted drug trafficker who in 2009 engaged in a “dirty tricks” operation for the oil giant in Ecuador that tried to undermine a trial judge, according to court papers.

Diego Borja, the leader of the sting operation and a longtime Chevron employee in Ecuador, earlier had been ordered deposed by a federal judge after he was caught on tape saying that he “cooked” evidence while working for Chevron during the trial. Borja separately said that he took soil samples away from contaminated oil sites and that Chevron’s laboratory was not independent as required by the court.

A hearing on Borja’s attempt to quash the order is set for November 10 in San Francisco.

"This court ruling is important because Borja and Hansen are at the epicenter of a potentially enormous scandal that could implicate several Chevron officials right through the company’s General Counsel and possibly beyond,” said Karen Hinton, a spokesperson for the Ecuadorians suing Chevron in the South American nation.

The depositions create potential peril for Chevron and its legal team.

Borja and possibly Hansen had extensive contact with Chevron lawyers as they taped four meetings in Ecuador in 2009 that they thought would implicate the trial judge in a bribery scandal, but instead backfired against Chevron, according to Hinton.

“Borja and Hansen participated in an illegal operation designed to interfere in an ongoing trial, ruin a judge’s reputation, and deny tens of thousands of people their day in court,” she added.

Chevron is charged in the lawsuit with illegally discharging billions of gallons of toxic produced water in Ecuador’s rainforest from 1964-1990, creating what experts believe is the world’s worst oil-related catastrophe. The company faces a potential $113 billion liability based on a 200,000-page evidentiary and is desperate to derail the trial before a judgment is reached, according to representatives of the plaintiffs.

The depositions, requested by lawyers for Ecuador’s government, are being ordered under a U.S. law that allows discovery to assist foreign legal proceedings.

Hansen and Borja came to the attention of authorities after Chevron released videotapes made by the pair, claiming they exposed a bribery scheme related to the trial judge. Chevron initially described Hansen and Borja as “Good Samaritans” who were not connected to the company.

Chevron’s story unraveled quickly.

Far from being a “good Samaritan”, an investigation found that Hansen had pled guilty to importing illegal drugs into the United States and had been sentenced to two years in a federal prison. He also had no connection to the remediation industry, as Chevron had claimed. The investigation also found that Borja was a long-time Chevron employee who was intimately involved in the company’s legal defense team in Ecuador, a fact Chevron did not disclose. Click here for more information about Borja and Hansen.

Chevron relocated Borja to the U.S. and paid for well-known criminal defense lawyer Cristina Arguedes to represent him. He was later taped by a childhood friend bragging about the operation. On the tapes, Borja brags that “crime does pay” and that he expected to receive large payments from Chevron.

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Chevron Condemned for Contamination in Rainforest by Ecuador Bishop

As Chevron scrambles to defend itself against outrage over its latest ad campaign, a Bishop who lives where Chevron contaminated the Ecuadorian rainforest, has condemned the company for its actions in a letter to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Gonzalo Lopez Marañon, Bishop of Seleuciana, called on the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to inform American Catholics, policy makers and the media about the “plight of our people” resulting from the contamination from “one of the world’s ten biggest corporations.”

Ecuador Bishop Criticizes Chevron for Its Role in World’s Largest Oil-Related Catastrophe
Seeks Assistance of U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops As Humanitarian Crisis Worsens

Amazon Defense Coalition
20 October 2010 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Karen Hinton at 703-798-3109 or Karen@hintoncommunications.com

Lago Agrio, Ecuador (October 20, 2010) – In another blow to Chevron’s image, a prominent Bishop who lives in the area of Ecuador where Chevron is embroiled in a multi-billion environmental lawsuit, has strongly criticized the oil giant for harming local residents with toxic contamination, it was learned today.

Gonzalo Lopez Marañon, Bishop of Seleuciana, made the criticism in a letter to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops sent on “behalf of dozens of indigenous and farmer communities” in Ecuador who live in the area of rainforest where Chevron operated a large oil concession from 1964 to 1990. The full text of the letter can be found here.

Chevron is accused in the lawsuit, brought by 30,000 rainforest residents, of deliberately dumping 18 billion gallons of toxic waste into rivers and streams in the area where the Bishop ministers to farmers and the surviving members of indigenous groups.

In the letter, Bishop Maranon wrote that “thousands of impoverished men, women and children live in an area of 2,000 square miles ravaged by oil pollution. This pollution, and its devastating health effects on our people, is a direct result of decades of oil production by the Texaco oil company [now Chevron] and its policy of storing oil sludge in almost 1,000 open and unlined pits. Over a period of decades, the company also pumped more than 18 billion gallons of toxic water into the Amazon’s rivers.”

The Bishop continued: “Chevron has made clear in official public statements that it accepts no responsibility for the pollution and death caused by Texaco, or the many pollution-connected diseases that continue to afflict our people.”

The letter comes in the wake of a new damages assessment from a team of American technical experts that puts Chevron’s potential liability in the tens of billions of dollars for what is believed to be the world’s largest oil-related disaster. The new assessment attributes a large portion of the damages to thousands of potential cancer deaths, according to court documents filed Sept. 16 by lawyers for the Amazonian communities.

Evidence in the lawsuit demonstrates that the pollution at each of Chevron’s 378 former oil production sites far exceeds Ecuadorian and U.S. norms designed to protect human health. Expert reports and peer-reviewed studies before the court also show that Chevron’s contamination has led to dramatically increased rates of cancer and poisoned an area roughly the size of Rhode Island.

Chevron claims it was given a legal release by the government of Ecuador in 1995, but residents of the affected Amazon communities say the release was obtained fraudulently after a sham clean-up and in any event does not apply to their private claims.

In referring to Chevron’s pollution, the Bishop’s letter stated: “We say, simply, that this must not stand. As the Holy Father recently said in Caritas in Veritatae:
Let us hope that the international community and individual governments will succeed in countering harmful ways of treating the environment. It is likewise incumbent upon the competent authorities to make every effort to ensure that the economic and social costs of using up shared environ mental resources are recognized with transparency and fully borne by those who incur them, not by other peoples or future generations. . . .”

The Bishop said it is his “hope and prayer” that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops “will devote its great skill and resources to educating American Catholics, governmental policy-makers and the media about the plight of our people and their 17-year pursuit of justice from one of the world’s ten biggest corporations.”

Chevron has been on the receiving end in recent months of several letters critical of its Ecuador pollution problem.

The oil giant’s effort to subpoena video outtakes from independent filmmaker Joe Berlinger -- who made a documentary film about the case -- drew fire from Robert Redford, Bill Moyers, Mikhail Gorbachov, Leonardo DiCaprio, and other well-known artists and political figures.

In July, 15 members of the U.S. Congress wrote Ron Kirk, United States Trade Representative, to express concern about Chevron’s efforts to withhold U.S. trade preferences from Ecuador as retaliation for the lawsuit. Kirk also received a similar letter at the time from The Most Reverend Howard J. Hubbard of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Chevron also has been under attack over its Ecuador policy from several U.S.-based environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, Rainforest Action Network, and Amazon Watch.

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Chevron Throws Out The “Communities They’re A Part Of” At Shareholders’ Meeting

The Real Ad

This past May, Chevron threw out of its shareholders’ meeting in Houston 20 people who had traveled from Nigeria, Burma, the Philippines, Angola and Ecuador — all places where Chevron has explored for oil and where, according to its new ad campaign, the oil giant should “support the communities they’re a part of.”

Allowing 20 foreigners with legitimate proxies into the shareholder meeting apparently was not the kind of “support” Chevron means in its new $90 million ad campaign that purports to highlight its commitment to the environment and good corporate citizenry but has been met with damning ridicule from dozens of environmental groups and bloggers pointing out the hypocrisy behind the advertisements.

The Fake Ad

Paul Tullis, an environmental writer, posted a blog on change.org that included this comment: “You may remember Chevron's "People Do" ad campaign from awhile back, in which the oil giant tried to convince us that environmental concerns were at the top of its agenda—even as it polluted the air, soil and water. Well, it looks like they're up to their old tricks.”

And, if the criticism from the environmental community wasn’t bad enough, the Yes Men prank with its fake press releases surely made Chevron wonder if its $90 million could have been put “To Good Use” elsewhere. See this New York Times article about the prank.

October 18, 2010, 3:38 PM
Pranksters Lampoon Chevron Ad Campaign
By STUART ELLIOTT
NY Times
Updated at 3:50 p.m.

Chevron is scrambling to deal with an elaborate lampoon of a major advertising campaign that the company introduced on Monday.

An environmental organization, the Rainforest Action Network, sent an e-mail on Monday afternoon claiming credit for the spoof, along with Amazon Watch and the Yes Men.

Chevron announced the campaign to reporters on Monday morning in e-mails, which were sent after the publication of an article about the ads in the Monday editions of The Wall Street Journal. There was also a news release about the campaign posted to a section of the Chevron Web site.

The campaign, by McGarryBowen in New York, carries the theme “We agree.” The ads seek to address critics of energy companies by affirming statements like “Oil companies should support the communities they’re part of” and “Oil companies should put their profits to good use.” A section of the Chevron Web site is also devoted to the campaign.

However, hours before the e-mails were sent, e-mails designed to resemble Chevron corporate missives also went out. They cited a different Web address, chevron-weagree.com , and included a link to what seemed to be an authentic news release on the official Chevron site.

The spoof news release carries the headline “Radical Chevron Ad Campaign Highlights Victims,” compared with the actual Chevron news release headline, “Chevron Launches New Global Advertising Campaign: ‘We Agree.’”

The spoof news release echoed language from the actual news release and included concocted quotations from actual Chevron executives. The main difference between the lampoon and the real was that the fake release described the ads as addressing environmental issues in which Chevron is embroiled, including a dispute in Ecuador over oil pollution; the real ads do not directly address those matters.

At least one news outlet, the Web site of Fast Company magazine, was fooled by the prank.

The fake e-mail was followed by another, purporting to reproduce a news release that Chevron supposedly posted on the Business Wire service. It described how “a group of environmentalists cyber-posing as Chevron officials illegally spoofed Chevron’s just-launched ‘We Agree’ advertising campaign, confusing reporters.”

The second fake release, like the first, also attributed made-up quotes to real Chevron executives.

Morgan Crinklaw, a spokesman for Chevron in San Ramon, Calif., said the company was “taking down the Web sites that purport to be Chevron’s.”

“We expected something like this would be done,” he said in a phone interview on Monday afternoon, because “there are activist groups whose sole focus is attacking Chevron and not engaging in rational conversations on energy issues.”

Mr. Crinklaw also forwarded by e-mail a statement from Chevron that called the lampoon “rhetoric and stunts” and condemned the “fake press release” and “counterfeit Web site, which are not affiliated with Chevron.”

The e-mail asked reporters to contact the company “to ensure the accuracy of the information they have received” about the campaign.

Asked who might have been behind the spoof, Mr. Crinklaw replied: “I don’t want to speculate. I don’t know the answer.”

The e-mail from the Rainforest Action Network described the hoax as a “satirical counter-campaign.”

“When it comes to oil spills, climate change and human rights abuses, we need real action from Chevron,” said the e-mail. “Instead, the oil giant has prioritized a high-priced glossy advertising campaign that attempts to trick the American people into believing it is different than BP.”

Fast Company, in updating the article on its Web site, said that the pranksters known as the Yes Men were behind the hoax. The Yes Men are known for mocking big business and what they perceive to be corporate misdeeds.

Some environmental organizations welcomed the lampoon, whatever its provenance.

“The spoof is a direct consequence of Chevron’s trying to fool people into thinking it is an environmentally conscious when the company is responsible for the extensive contamination found in Ecuador’s rain forest and in other places as well,” Karen Hinton, a spokeswoman for the Ecuadorian plaintiffs suing Chevron, said in an e-mail on Monday afternoon.

Earlier, before the spoof became widely known, Ms. Hinton sent an e-mail in which the plaintiffs criticized the actual Chevron campaign as “greenwashing.”

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Chevron Using Ad Campaign to Cover-up Ecuador Environmental Disaster

In the face of an pending potential multi-billion liability in Ecuador for illegally dumping billions of gallons of toxic waste directly into the Ecuadorian rainforest, Chevron has unveiled a new ad campaign titled "We Agree." The advertising campaign – a slick, multi-million dollar investment in image management by the company, seeks to trumpet all that the company is doing to "do the right thing" as a community member and environmental steward. However, the company – while plunging millions of dollars into advertising, lobbying, and legal fees – has done nothing to cleanup the actual damage caused by its substandard oil drilling operations in Ecuador. Instead, the company is fighting to undermine the courts after hundreds of thousands of pages of evidence have established a mountain of evidence that the company has contaminated an area of Ecuador the size of Rhode Island. For more information take a look at the press release below from the Amazon Defense Coalition:

Chevron's Misleading Ad Campaign Ignores Toxic Legacy in Ecuador Rainforest

New Video Provides Devastating Proof of Chevron Toxic Pits in Ecuador

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Chevron's abandonment of hundreds of toxic waste pits in Ecuador is being highlighted in a new video by the environmental group Amazon Watch as leaders of indigenous groups from that country blasted the oil giant for launching a misleading advertising campaign designed to cover up its massive environmental liabilities.

"The reality is that Chevron has devastated dozens of indigenous and farmer communities in Ecuador"

The video, which can be seen on www.chevrontoxico.com, shows the devastating effects of the pits Chevron gouged out of the jungle floor decades ago and outfitted with gooseneck pipes to drain waste into streams that thousands of indigenous inhabitants relied on for their drinking water.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Chevron built and abandoned an estimated 916 of the pits in a 2,000-square mile area of Ecuador's rainforest; none of them have been properly remediated, and most still leech cancer-causing toxins into groundwater, streams, and soils, according to the video.

The exact number of Chevron's abandoned waste pits is unknown because Chevron never kept a log of the locations of each pit, according to a report on the contamination aired by 60 Minutes.

Several peer-reviewed health evaluations have found elevated rates of cancer in the area where Chevron operated, and one American expert recently submitted a report
concluding that up to 10,000 faced a significant risk of contracting cancer in the coming decades because of the pollution.

The Amazon Watch video highlights a waste pit at Aguarico 4, one of 356 well sites that Texaco (now Chevron) operated in Ecuador when it ran an oil concession from 1964 to 1990.

Chevron is now a defendant in a multi-billion lawsuit in Ecuador that alleges it deliberately discharged more than 18 billion gallons of toxic "formation water" into rivers and streams, causing the worst oil-related contamination on earth. The plaintiffs have estimated damages at higher than $100 billion.

In the meantime, Chevron's new ad campaign was blasted by leaders of the Amazonian communities suing the oil giant. The Wall Street Journal showed a picture of one ad, which said "Oil Companies Should Support the Communities They're A Part Of". It then said, "We Agree."

Leaders of the affected communities in Ecuador said they considered the campaign "green washing" and asked that Chevron remove the ads from circulation.

"The reality is that Chevron has devastated dozens of indigenous and farmer communities in Ecuador," said Luis Yanza, an Ecuadorian who coordinates the case against Chevron. "Chevron saying it cares about communities is certainly not our experience here in Ecuador, where people are hurting because of the company's operations."

Chevron is certainly spending far more on the ad campaign than it ever spent on remediating its toxic waste pits in Ecuador, said Yanza.

"The company's brand would improve more by doing an actual clean-up rather than acting like it cares when it doesn't," he added.

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Expert: Chevron Responsible for 10,000 People at Risk of Cancer

A new expert analysis has estimated that some 10,000 residents of the Ecuadorian Amazon face a sharply increased risk of contracting cancer in the coming decades due to heightened exposure to oil waste due to Chevron's substandard oil-extraction operation in that region from 1964-1990. This expert analysis, filed in the Ecuadorian court hearing a landmark legal case alleging that Chevron should pay to remediate the damage caused by more than 25 years of oil drilling, demonstrates that Chevron's refusal to clean-up its mess has created a critical human health catastrophe. For more information take a look a the press release below from the Amazon Defense Coalition:

Chevron's Ecuador Cancer Problem: 10,000 People at Risk of Contracting Disease in Coming Decades, Says Expert

Oil Giant Faces Up to $69 Billion in Liability for Potential Cancer Deaths

QUITO, Ecuador--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Almost 10,000 people in Ecuador face a significant risk of contracting cancer in the coming decades due to Chevron's refusal to clean up the billions of gallons of oil waste it dumped into the rain forest, a leading American expert has reported to the Ecuador court where Chevron is a defendant in a multi-billion dollar environmental trial.

The cancer assessment was presented on September 16 to the Superior Court of Nueva Loja in Lago Agrio, Ecuador, where Chevron is charged with dumping more than 18 billion gallons of toxic "water of formation" directly into the rainforest. The company also faces a potential $69 billion liability for the cancer deaths, an amount that accounts for slightly less than half of the top end of the plaintiff's assessment of total damages, estimated at $113 billion.

Dr. Daniel Rourke, a prominent American statistician formerly associated with the RAND Corporation, has concluded that 9,950 people living in the rainforest region in Ecuador where Chevron operated face a significant risk of contracting cancer in the coming decades. The number could spike higher as Dr. Rourke's analysis assumes a clean-up of the contaminated area will begin immediately and be completed in ten years – something that Chevron has thus far rejected out of hand.

"This study demonstrates that Chevron has created a critical human health catastrophe in Ecuador that puts thousands of people at risk of death," said Luis Yanza, who coordinates the legal case against Chevron for approximately 80 rainforest indigenous and farmer communities impacted by the oil giant's operations.

"As it is, hardly a day goes by where we don't receive a report of another cancer death in the area where Chevron operated," he said.

Chevron, which operated several oil fields in the Amazon from 1964 to 1990, is being sued by 30,000 rain forest residents for clean-up costs. The trial is taking place in Ecuador at Chevron's request after it was moved from U.S. federal court in 2002.

Several experts believe the damage caused by Chevron in Ecuador dwarfs the harm generated by the BP Gulf spill, and is probably the world's largest oil-related disaster. The contamination covers an area the size of Rhode Island and will take at least a decade to remediate once funds are in place, according to experts.

The human health problem in the area where Chevron operated is exacerbated by the fact the local population lives in close proximity to the hundreds of oil wells and waste pits that Chevron left behind when it departed Ecuador in 1992. Chevron never warned local residents of the dangers of exposure to the contamination and never fenced off any of its 916 toxic waste pits, which are considered hazardous.

Dr. Rourke's report uses actuarial life-table methodology to estimate the number of lives at risk of cancer as a result of exposure to the oil contamination.

The report utilizes Ecuadorian census data to estimate the population of the region, adjusted for growth rate since the oil operations began in 1964. The value of each excess cancer death was estimated at $7 million, a figure based on an average from the U.S. tort system and an economic concept of the "value of a statistical life" as employed by the US Environmental Protection Agency.

Several peer-reviewed health evaluations had previously found that cancer rates in the region where Chevron operated were dramatically higher than in the rest of Ecuador. These reports can be found here <http://chevrontoxico.com/tags.html?tags=health+studies>.

When Chevron published a full-page ad in Ecuadorian newspapers attacking the health studies, more than 50 eminent scientists signed a letter <http://chevrontoxico.com/news-and-multimedia/2005/0406-letter-arguing-that-chevron-misleads-about-health-impacts.html> published in the prestigious International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health defending the methods used to conduct the health evaluations and criticizing Chevron's efforts to undermine the studies' findings.

Chevron's own damages report, also submitted to the court on Sept. 16, found that the company had no liability and that the oil contamination from its former oil fields poses no harm to human health.

Chevron has been hit hard in the Ecuador trial in recent days.

The company's primary American technical expert in Ecuador, John Conner, suffered a major blow to his credibility when it was reported that he testified in Mississippi that the oil giant had never harmed even a single person in his two decades working as a consultant for the company. Conner also admitted that Chevron had paid his company $8 million in consulting fees, with up to $5 million coming from his work on the Ecuador matter.

After hearing Conner's testimony in Mississippi, a jury delivered a $19 million judgment against Chevron on behalf of five plaintiffs who suffered cognitive injuries from exposure to the company's leaking underground gas tanks.

True to form, in the dozens of expert reports Chevron submitted to the Ecuador court under Conner's supervision, not one has concluded that Chevron's operational practices in the South American nation had harmed even a single person.

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Chevron Ecuador Scientific Expert Suffers Blow to Credibility

Chevron's lead expert in its massive Ecuador environmental trial suffered an embarrassing blow to his credibility earlier this year, putting the credibility of his scientific work in Ecuador further into question. The expert, named John Connor, testified in a Mississippi case against the oil giant that Chevron could not have been responsible for any damage in that case. In fact, Connor testified that in 20 years of testifying in lawsuits on behalf of the company, he knew of no circumstance where "there were any injuries of individuals that were the responsibility of Chevron or Texaco." Well, after opposing lawyers exposed that Connor's scientific opinions were flatly wrong, and the result of clear error, it apparently became clear to the jury that Connor's credibility was very much in question – they awarded the plaintiffs $19 million in damages from Chevron.

This series of events is important because it illustrates the lack of credibility that Chevron's scientific experts have. The same man who testified that Chevron has never been responsible for any injuries to anyone is the same "expert" telling Ecuadorian courts that the billions of gallons of toxic produced water that Chevron admits to dumping directly into the Ecuadorian rainforest is having no impact on the environment or on the people living in the area. Take a look at the below press release from the Amazon Defense Coalition for more information:

Chevron's Lead Ecuador Expert Suffers Major Blow to Credibility in U.S. Trial, Court Documents Say

Chevron Hit With $19 Million Judgment After Jury Rejects John Connor's Testimony

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--John Connor, Chevron's lead American expert in its multi-billion dollar Ecuador environmental trial, suffered a major blow to his credibility when a U.S. jury rejected his testimony and delivered a $19 million judgment against the oil giant for causing mental retardation to several Mississippi residents exposed to its leaking gas tanks, according to court papers provided this week by lawyers on the case.

In the trial -- which took place in Jefferson County, Mississippi -- Connor conceded on cross-examination that over almost two decades of work for Chevron he has never once concluded that the impact of his client's operations has harmed even a single person, according to the court documents. Connor testified that he knew of no circumstance where "there were any injuries of individuals that were the responsibility of Chevron or Texaco."

Connor also tried to exonerate Chevron by testifying that any contamination must have been caused by leaks from three storage tanks owned by a smaller company in the area, not the larger tanks owned by Chevron. But when confronted on cross-examination by evidence that he had misidentified the site from a state database, Connor admitted that he had never taken any steps to definitively verify that the gas tanks actually existed on the smaller company's property.

The clear bias in Connor's testimony and errors in his analysis apparently shocked the Mississippi jury, which rejected his argument that Chevron had no responsibility for the cognitive deficiencies of the five plaintiffs. The jury awarded the plaintiffs $19 million in damages, said Ed Flechas, the lead lawyer on the case who made the court documents available. Chevron is appealing the decision.

"John Connor has virtually no credibility as an expert scientist given his numerous errors and dismal performance in the Mississippi trial," said Flechas, whose clients suffered severe physical and mental retardation.

Relevant excerpts from Connor's testimony in the trial, which took place in early April, can be found here.

Also in his Mississippi testimony, Connor admitted that he has been paid "at least" $8 million by Chevron for his work and that as much as $5 million of that amount derived from the Ecuador case, according to the documents.

Chevron is charged in Ecuador with the illegal dumping of billions of gallons of toxic waste directly into the rainforest from 1964-1990, polluting an area the size of Rhode Island and creating what some experts believe is the world's worst oil-related catastrophe. Cancer rates in the area of Ecuador where Chevron operated have skyrocketed and six indigenous groups have seen their traditional lifestyles decimated, according to evidence submitted to the court by the plaintiffs.

Connor's testimony in the Mississippi case could play a significant role in the Ecuador matter, where the stakes for Chevron are considerably higher and where the company's defense rests largely on Connor's credibility. A new damages report prepared by a team of prominent American experts and submitted by the plaintiffs on Sept. 16 found Chevron's clean-up costs could rise to $113 billion; a large portion of that amount is compensation for up to 10,000 cancer deaths predicted in the coming decades if there is no immediate clean-up.

Connor continues to play a critical role for Chevron in the Ecuador trial, helping to coordinate the submission of numerous expert reports assessing environmental impact at dozens of Chevron's oil production facilities that are the subject of the litigation. All of the reports submitted by Connor in the Ecuador trial found the company was not responsible for any harm despite scientific evidence from the parties and multiple third-party sources that the company's former sites remain extensively contaminated.

In his Ecuador reports, Connor has tried to blame any contamination in Chevron's concession area on Petroecuador, Ecuador's state-owned oil company that took over Chevron's operations in 1992. This tactic is similar to Connor trying to blame the smaller company in the Mississippi case, said Pablo Fajardo, the lead lawyer for the Ecuadorian plaintiffs.

In one report submitted to the Ecuador court in September, Connor found that Chevron's operations in Ecuador were "consistent with applicable regulations and prevailing practices" from 1972-1990, when it operated the oil fields; that Chevron's remediation in the mid-1990s was "completed in accordance with applicable specifications" even though evidence from both Chevron and the plaintiffs indicates the remediated sites are still contaminated; and, that any remaining contamination from Chevron's activities "pose no measurable risk to human health."

Connor's reports stand in stark contrast to the findings of numerous court experts and independent scientists. To date, more than 64,000 scientific sampling results and more than 200,000 pages of trial record demonstrate that 100% of Chevron's former oil production sites are extensively contaminated, including those that the company claimed to have "remediated" in exchange for a limited release from the government.

Further, peer-reviewed health evaluations have found elevated rates of birth defects, spontaneous abortions, and cancers in the area of Ecuador where Chevron operated.

Lawyers for the Ecuadorians have long alleged that Connor's scientific work in Ecuador is virtually worthless.

"John Connor gets paid by Chevron to use all sorts of trickery to produce conclusions that benefit the company," said Pablo Fajardo, the lead Ecuadorian lawyer for the plaintiffs. "Maybe that is the reason why Chevron has said it expects to lose the trial."

More information about the "Junk Science" Chevron's experts have deployed in Ecuador is available here: http://chevrontoxico.com/news-and-multimedia/2010/0429-chevron-lawyers-commit-fraud-to-undercount-oil-contamination.html

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