http://hotair.com/archives/2018/07/14/awww-chevron-shakedown-lawyer-search-new-career/
It didn't get the headlines that Brett Kavanaugh and Donald Trump got this week. Heck, it didn't even get the headlines that Steve Donziger used to get earlier in his career, after the attorney scored a $8.6 billion judgment against Chevron in Ecuador. On Tuesday, though, the state of New York yanked Donziger's law license as a direct result of the fraudulent operation that produced the judgment:
An attorney who won an $8.6 billion award in an Ecuadoran court against Chevron Corp. over pollution of the Amazon rain forest later found to be obtained by coercion, fraud and bribery has lost his law license.
Steven Donziger is suspended from practicing law in New York state until further notice based on findings made in March 2014 by a federal trial court, a New York appeals court said July 10.
The 2014 findings of U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan are "uncontroverted evidence of serious professional misconduct which immediately threatens the public interest," the appeals court said.
The only surprise was that it took four years for the state to act since Kaplan's ruling. It's been a year since the Supreme Court allowed a 2016 2nd Circuit appellate ruling stand that barred the enforcement of the award, thanks to the "deceit" involved. The appellate court ruling extensively recapped the findings of corruption involved in Donziger's operation and remains perhaps the best summary of the case. ...
The district court ruled that Donziger's operation "constituted a RICO enterprise," and that Donziger himself had conducted it "in a pattern of racketeering activity. ... If ever there were a case warranting equitable relief with respect to a judgment procured by fraud, this is it." ...
With all of that on the record, affirmed in a 2014 judgment, upheld by the appellate court in 2016, and allowed to stand by the Supreme Court last year, one has to wonder how Donziger's license lasted as long as it did. In fact, one has to wonder how Donziger hasn't yet been prosecuted for his actions in the Chevron Shakedown. ...
The Wall Street Journal's editorial board hits closer to the mark:
Plaintiff attorney Steven Donziger's attempted looting of Chevron for spurious environmental crimes in Ecuador ranks among the biggest legal scams in history. The law finally caught up to Mr. Donziger this week as a New York court pulled his legal license. ...
Luckily U.S. judges aren't as corruptible. A Second Circuit Court of Appeals panel unanimously upheld Judge Kaplan's ruling in 2016, but the shameless Mr. Donziger has continued to importune other countries where Chevron has assets to enforce the fraudulent Ecuadorian judgment. An appeals court in Argentina and Brazil's Superior Court of Justice recently rejected Mr. Donziger's petitions.
On Tuesday New York's first Appellate Division took a step toward reining in Mr. Donziger's marauding by suspending his license to practice. "Judge Kaplan's findings constitute uncontroverted evidence of serious professional misconduct which immediately threatens the public interest," the court declared.
Mr. Donziger's foot soldiers in other countries continue to try to enforce the judgment, but credit to the New York court for sending a strong message to conniving trial lawyers that their shenanigans won't be tolerated in American courtrooms.
That action, while commendable, seems awfully late in coming ... and a somewhat mild punishment for someone who created a RICO organization that aimed at taking $8.6 billion to which it was not entitled. ...
The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted. ~ D.H. Lawrence
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