Steven Donziger, human rights attorney, discusses being found guilty of contempt.

Attorney Steven Donziger said Chevron has been trying to demonize him for the past 10 years after he was found guilty of six criminal contempt charges on Monday.

Donziger, during a Thursday appearance on Hill.TV’s “Rising,” said that Chevron has tried for 10 years to get him criminally prosecuted for his work in Ecuador. Donziger added that federal Judge Lewis Kaplan, a former tobacco industry lawyer, appointed a private law firm that had Chevron as a client.

“A Chevron law firm prosecuted me in the name of the United States of America, and that’s the fundamental problem,” he said. 

In 2011, Donziger won a $9.5 billion pollution judgment against Chevron for thousands of Ecuadorian farmers and indigenous people that were impacted by oil drilling contamination. However, Chevron countersued and accused him of withholding information and bribing a judge. Since 2019, Donziger has been on house arrest for refusing to hand over this laptop and cell phone citing client confidentiality. 

Donziger added that Chevron’s countersuit was previously rejected by the government. 

“First, I shouldn’t be prosecuted, the case was already rejected by the government,” he said. “But if he [Kaplan] is going to proceed over the objection of the government to try to have me prosecuted, you can’t appoint a Chevron private lawyer to engage in a public prosecution, especially if it deprives me of my liberty.”