Rock’n’Roll BDS-hole likes everyone to believe he is the common man, fighting the big bads of the world – including the big corporates (and of course the Je…ehh…Zionists).
But as this recent report about a scam against Chevron seems to suggest, Waters has his own greed issues.
The slow unraveling of the case against Chevron has been eye-opening, not least for the glimpse it offers into the way money moves through the progressive activist world.
The background: Chevron was accused of inflicting horrible suffering on the people of Ecuador through mismanagement of drilling operations there, contaminating the groundwater and exposing thousands of people, mostly in nearby indigenous communities, to a stew of toxic sludge. The most obvious problem with the case was that Chevron had never drilled for oil in Ecuador; it acquired Texaco, which had done so years before, in partnership with the Ecuadoran state oil company. At the conclusion of its operations, Texaco received a formal certification from the government of Ecuador that it had cleaned up after itself (at a cost of about $40 million) and that it was released from further liability for the operations, which were continued by the state oil company. Like many state oil companies, Ecuador’s had at times been something less than scrupulous in its observance of environmental standards. Its operations are likely the source of the pollution in Ecuador.
But American lawyer Steven Donziger, an old basketball buddy of Barack Obama’s, managed to obtain a $9.5 billion judgment against Chevron in an Ecuadoran court. Chevron complained that this judgment was the product of corruption, that Donziger et al. had falsified evidence, paid off allegedly neutral experts, bribed judges, and more. Chevron took those complaints to court in the United States and was successful.
More than successful, in fact: In 2014, Chevron won a racketeering verdict against Donziger under the RICO statute, with the judge finding that the case had been in essence a grand act of extortion executed through bribery, money laundering, and coercion. U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in his opinion is flabbergasted, describing plaintiffs’ misdeeds that
include things that normally come only out of Hollywood — coded emails among Donziger and his colleagues describing their private interactions with and machinations directed at judges and a court-appointed expert, their payments to a supposedly neutral expert out of a secret account, a lawyer who invited a film crew to innumerable private strategy meetings and even to ex parte meetings with judges, an Ecuadorian judge who claims to have written the multibillion-dollar decision but who was so inexperienced and uncomfortable with civil cases that he had someone else (a former judge who had been removed from the bench) draft some civil decisions for him, an 18-year-old typist who supposedly did Internet research in American, English, and French law for the same judge, who knew only Spanish, and much more.
After a lengthy exploration of bribery, money laundering, and other corruption, Judge Kaplan concludes: “The decision in the Lago Agrio case was obtained by corrupt means. The defendants here may not be allowed to benefit from that in any way. The order entered today will prevent them from doing so.”
Chevron won, and Donziger and his allies were ordered to hand over to Chevron any money or other assets they had received or would receive in the future from their corrupt efforts.
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Donziger also paid a phalanx of activists and journalists to produce inflammatory media coverage against Chevron. Rex Weyler, a Greenpeace activist who wrote a blog post titled “Chevron’s Amazon Chernobyl Case moves to Canada,” was paid over $15,000. Canadian indigenous activist Phil Fontaine, who claimed in a statement to the media that Chevron “must be held accountable” for “devastating, and shocking” environmental harm, received an interest in the Ecuadorian judgment. Donziger also planned to give Canadian indigenous activist Ed John an equity interest in the Ecuadorian judgment.
Prominent Venezuelan-American activist Eva Golinger, who participated in the “dirty hand of Chevron” campaign orchestrated by Ecuador and the [plaintiffs], received a 0.125% interest in the Ecuadorian judgment.
Another prominent public supporter of Donziger’s media campaign is Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, who also has an undisclosed interest in the Ecuadorian judgment.
Chevron wants the court to find Donziger in contempt because he “willfully and repeatedly has violated the RICO injunction, monetizing and profiting from the fraudulent Ecuadorian judgment by selling, assigning, pledging, transferring, and encumbering interests therein.” The court is considering its claims.
Roger Waters, the rock musician, has denounced Chevron for its “greed,” complaining that it is “disquietingly apparent that the rich and powerful are still much attached to the feathering of their own nests at any cost to others.” Well. Documents submitted to the court show “George R. Waters” taking two equity positions in the case, one for 0.076 percent and one for 0.025 percent, through “Fenwick,” presumably the firm of Mark Fenwick, Rogers’s manager and an heir to the Fenwick department-store chain in the United Kingdom. That would come to roughly $9.6 million of a $9.5 billion judgment. You could feather a lot of nests with that. (I was unable to contact Waters or Fenwick for comment. Rock stars are really hard to get on the phone.) If taking in a few million dollars via an investment in extortion and bribery is not greed, then what is?
More over at Forbes:
Donziger paid money, or gave shares in the Ecuadorian judgment, to celebrities and activists who supported his illegal pressure campaign against Chevron. Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, a notorious public supporter of Donziger’s media campaign, apparently received a 0.076% interest in the Ecuadorian judgment. The judgment purported to be worth over $8billion, so Waters’s share was potentially in the millions.
Naturally, Waters thinks he knows better.
Previously on Israellycool: Sprung! Roger Waters Lives in/Benefits From “Occupied Territories” of Native Americans
