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appearance that Cabrera was neutral and independent and that the RICO Defendants and their co­
conspirators were not the report's true authors. This submission purported to urge Cabrera to
consider various documents and third-party reports, criticized his legal analysis of liability, and
gave suggestions as to how he might support his existing findings and introduce new ones. But it
had been the RICO Defendants and their co-conspirators themselves who had decided which
documents to review, how to present the legal case, and what findings and support to put forward
in Cabrera's report. Thus, the RICO Defendants and their co-conspirators wrote their
"questions" to further the false appearance of independence from Cabrera.
166. Cabrera filed a response to the Lago Agrio Plaintiffs' comments on November
17,2008 in a supplemental report. Ignoring Chevron's objections, the comments put forward by
the Lago Agrio Plaintiffs are reflected (at times word for word, including errors) in Cabrera's
supplemental report, which increased the damage recommendation to $27 billion, with little
explanation and no legally or scientifically valid support. As Donziger had planned, the RICO
Defendants and their co-conspirators were indeed able to "jack this thing up to thirty billion."
167. The RICO Defendants and their co-conspirators also dictated other portions of
Cabrera's response by secretly drafting his "answers" to their own comments and questions.
Some of the "questions to the Perito [Cabrera]," according to an internal Stratus email, were
"assigned to us." In an email dated August 1, 2008, Beltman outlined for his colleagues what
"we need to do for the comments on the Cabrera report." His email listed the various answers
that needed to be prepared, and what they should say. Beltman repeatedly referred to the Lago
Agrio Plaintiffs' questions in the first person and to their own work as that of"Mr. Cabrera."
For example, he says that "[ w]e comment on the lack of consideration given to cleanup of rivers
and streams," and "[w]e comment that Cabrera does not consider metal contamination in his
cleanup costs." He then suggests possible responses to those comments. Beltman likewise
expressed his desire that work performed by U.S. consultant 3TM "be in a form that someone in
Ecuador could have written," and another Stratus employee noted that Stratus needed to revise
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