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contract with Dr. Peter N. Jones of Bauu Institute whereby he agreed to review the Cabrera
Report and provide comments in a conversation with Stratus. Such fraudulently obtained
endorsements, along with Stratus's own evaluation-falsely touted as "independent"-served to
further enhance the value of the Cabrera Report in the RICO Defendants' and their co-
conspirators' media pressure campaign targeted at forcing Chevron to pay them off.
(vi) The RICO Defendants' Payments to Cabrera for Work
He Did Not Perform
185. The perceived independence of the Cabrera Report was essential to the RICO
Defendants' plan. Independence was the key to its credibility with the press, the public, and the
other parties whose endorsements the RI CO Defendants and their co-conspirators needed. Of
course, the perception of independence would be lost ifit was known that the RICO Defendants
and their co-conspirators wrote the report themselves, and keeping this secret required Cabrera's
cooperation. And if the Cabrera Report were perceived as untrustworthy, the RICO Defendants
would be at a loss to demonstrate Chevron's liability, not to mention the "damages" they hoped
to recover. Accordingly, when the RICO Defendants arranged for the court to abandon the
judicial inspection process and appoint Cabrera as a "global" expert, they also insisted that the
parties should pay for this process, and directly paid Cabrera over $263,000, despite the fact that
Chevron objected throughout to the improper new process and refused to fund it. These
payments began immediately. Just weeks after Cabrera's appointment had been publicly
announced, but before he was officially sworn in to commence his work, Yanza wrote to
Donziger and told him, "We have met with Richard and everything is under control. We gave
him some money in advance." Some payments were made through a "secret account," through
which Kohn funneled tens ofthousands of do liars to Cabrera, apparently in excess of the
$263,000 paid to Cabrera through Selva Viva. As it is now clear that Cabrera did not write the
report, the only purpose for these payments, which were made by Defendant Selva Viva and
funded by Kohn or Kohn Swift, must have been to buy Cabrera's cooperation and silence
regarding the true authorship of the report.
74