| Steven R. Donziger | |
|---|---|
| Born | September 14, 1961 Jacksonville, Florida, U.S. |
| Education | American University (BA) Harvard University (JD) |
| Occupation | Human rights lawyer |
Donziger, the New York lawyer who doggedly pursued Chevron for its contamination of the Ecuadorian Amazon and helped win a multi-billion-dollar verdict in Ecuador, was found to have participated in racketeering. A federal court found that he was involved in a scheme to bribe an Ecuadorian judge…
Donziger was found guilty in July of six counts of criminal contempt of court for withholding evidence in a long, complex legal fight with Chevron, which claims that Mr. Donziger fabricated evidence in the 1990s to win a lawsuit he filed against the oil giant on behalf of 30,000 Indigenous people in Ecuador.
In 2011, an Ecuadorian judge ordered Chevron to pay $18.2 billion for "extensively polluting" the Lago Agrio region in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Ecuador's highest court upheld the verdict a year later. However, it reduced the amount of compensation to $9.5 billion.
In 2011, Chevron filed a civil RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) suit against Donziger in New York City, accusing him of bribing an Ecuadorean judge, ghostwriting the damages judgment against it, and "fixing" scientific studies.
(Reuters) - Attorneys for environmental lawyer Steven Donziger said Thursday that he is serving the remainder of a six-month sentence for contempt of court at home under a pandemic-era early release program.
Donziger was found responsible for forging evidence and engaging in corrupt practices to win a lawsuit against the well-known oil company Chevron. Evidence showed that the lawyer engaged in bribery to get the Ecuadorian courts to render a verdict in his favor.
Steven Donziger, the US indigenous rights campaigner and lawyer who spent decades battling the energy firm Chevron over pollution in the Ecuadorian rainforest, was sentenced to six months' imprisonment on Friday for criminal contempt charges arising from a lawsuit brought by the oil giant.
Donziger was sentenced to six months in federal prison for the misdemeanor charge of criminal contempt of court on Oct. 1 by New York Federal Judge Loretta Preska.