hRb7u

d. Arranging Cabrera's Appointment as Global Assessment
Expert and Secretly Writing His Supposedly "Independent"
Report
122. When Dr. Calmbacher refused to cooperate in the scheme to defraud and extort
Chevron and when the Lago Agrio court's settling experts began to confirm the RICO
Defendants' and their co-conspirators' lack of evidence, the conspirators changed tactics.
Realizing that neutral settling experts would not accept their fraudulent claims, the RICO
Defendants and their co-conspirators requested that the Lago Agrio court abandon the judicial
inspection process that had been agreed to by the parties. In its place, the conspirators arranged
for the Lago Agrio court to create a new "global assessment" process and secured the
appointment of a co-conspirator to the position of the purportedly neutral "global assessment
expert" with whom they would work in secret to ghostwrite his report. Until Chevron uncovered
the RICO Defendants' and their co-conspirators' underlying fraudulent behavior, their plan
seemed to be working.
123. To the Lago Agrio court, the conspirators proposed that a single expert be
appointed, and that he and his team conduct a global assessment of the former concession area.
124. To execute their scheme, the RICO Defendants assembled a team handpicked by
the conspirators of U.S. scientists, Ecuadorians, engineers, and other experts, who would do the
actual work charged to Cabrera. And after the report was filed, some of these individuals were
disclosed as members of Cabrera's fictional team.
125. In December 2006, more than two months before Cabrera was appointed by the
court, Donziger discussed the RICO Defendants' and their co-conspirators' plan to ghostwrite
the "independent" report with co-conspirator Soltani: "The judge is going to appoint a guy in
Ecuador, um, to be the expert, but really, you know, we'll be supporting him with the work-our
people, E-Tech, whoever we choose to use." As Donziger saw it, the expert would "ha[ve] to
totally play ball with us and let us take the lead while projecting the image that he is working for
the court." Indeed, the driving question for the plaintiffs during this period, was, as Donziger
mused, "how can we control this perito?"
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