Left: Steven Donziger c/o @SDonziger on Twitter. Right: Susan Sarandon c/o GuillemMedina via Wikimedia Commons
Steven Donziger, an Upper West Sider and environmental lawyer who was arrested for taking on Big Oil, was freed today from house arrest, Donziger announced on Twitter.
“It’s over,” reads the tweet. “Just left with release papers in hand. Completely unjust that I spent even 1 day in this Kafkaesque situation.”
Donziger served nearly 1,000 days in arbitrary detention—including 45 days in prison and over 900 days under house arrest.
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Donziger was charged in 2019 with criminal contempt of court for refusing to turn over his computer and other electronic devices to a district court judge, after fighting a long-standing battle with Chevron for ravaging the Amazonian rainforest. He had become an environmental hero after being found guilty and being placed under house arrest.
Donziger spent decades suing Texaco and then Chevron (which bought Texaco in 2001), challenging the oil giant with causing “a mass industrial poisoning in the Amazon that crushed the lives of Indigenous peoples.”
In 2011, an Ecuadorean court awarded his clients—30,000 indigenous people—$18 billion (a sum that was later reduced to $9.5 billion). Chevron said that Texaco’s $40 million cleanup in the 1990s had already been deemed sufficient by the country, and it countersued.
Donziger had starred in a documentary, Crude, and the oil company insisted on seeing outtakes from the film as it attempted to discredit the lawyer’s methods. It charged Donziger’s team with ghostwriting an expert report and for bribing the judge, charges with Donziger denied.
Chevron filed a RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) suit against Donziger, and in 2014, U.S. district court judge ruled in Chevron’s favor and said Chevron did not have to pay the $9.5 billion. But that wasn’t enough. Chevron sued Donziger again, demanding that he turn over his computer and electronic devices. Donziger refused, citing attorney-client confidentiality.
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In 2019, the judge in the case took the highly unusual measure of appointing a private law firm to charge Donziger with criminal contempt of court, He was disbarred, placed under house arrest and found guilty in July 2021. In late October 2021, he began serving a six month jail sentence.
Twenty-nine Nobel Laureates described the treatment of Donziger as “judicial harassment,” and high-profile activists like Sting, Greta Thunberg and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez rallied to support him.
On Monday, a block party took place at 245 West 104th Street — where Donziger lives — to celebrate his freedom. Speakers included Susan Sarandon and Chris Smalls, who led unionizing efforts against Amazon.
BREAKING: Please join us TONIGHT at 6 pm ET in Manhattan to celebrate my freedom after 993 days of detention. At 245 West 104th Street. Will be live-streaming on my Twitter and IG.??? pic.twitter.com/siLfALmP77
— Steven Donziger (@SDonziger) April 25, 2022
Good to know.
I thought his 6 month prison (not simple house arrest) term must be up/over soon.
I’m sure the likes of the NYT will still ignore the case, the Chevron (originally Texaco) case, and this gross abuse of the judicial system by the judge and Chevron.
He was not punished for taking on Chevron. He was punished for contempt after credible findings that he had engaged in conduct that was outrageous and worthy of disbarrment.
Yeah, that “outrageous conduct” was winning a law suit against Chevron/Texaco.
Furthermore you ignored the private prosecution issue, it wasn’t simple contempt jailing.
Keep up the “good” work of justifying massive environmental poison and a private company (along with a fed judge) using a private prosecutor.
donzinger engaged in fraud and corruption in securing the judgment against chevron in South America. the guy is no hero, he is a criminal. get your facts straight
All false. And the actual evidence shows Chevron is guilty and Donziger did nothing but help beat them in court. This vendetta against him was a cheap trick (that actually wasted millions of dollars) that totally backfired. https://amazonwatch.org/news/2022/0426-steven-donziger-is-finally-free-onward-toward-justice-for-the-people-of-ecuador
If any of that were true you could document that.
Furthermore, he was not convicted of what you accuse him of in the USA, so there’s another whole problem with your line of reasoning, and that problem utterly undermines the point you suppose you’ve made.
LOL, right. There’s no evidence except Chevron’s actual contamination which remains in Ecuador. And then there’s the judgment against them upheld by four layers of courts there. And then there’s Texaco’s ADMISSION of deliberate dumping in the first place. But yeah, go ahead and keep repeating the lies of an admitted gross polluter and human rights violator. That’s a good look.
Paul Paz y Mino:
You replied to the wrong party.
I assume you mean to direct your reply to christian herzeca.
Yes, sorry.
read https://casetext.com/case/chevron-corp-v-donziger-29
Yeah and also read: https://chevroninecuador.org/assets/docs/2011-02-14-summary-of-judgment-Aguinda-v-ChevronTexaco.pdf