In Other Media-eg New Statesman, AJE, FP, Georgia, NYT,  Azerbaijan, CSM Click here to contact us     .

By Matthew Russell Lee, Scoop Patreon, thread

SDNY COURTHOUSE, Dec 4 – Steven Donziger, now with a June 2020 trial date, was wrongly accused of being close in Ecuador with Rafael Correa and thus a flight risk, it has emerged.

   Donziger's lawyer Andrew J. Frisch chided CJA Prosecutor Rita Glavin for claiming Donziger has "ties in Ecuador, including to... the former president of Ecuador Correa," noting that "Ms. Glavin was either mistaken or unaware that former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa has lived in exile in Belgium since 2017."

   This according to a December 3 letter from Frisch to U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge Loretta A. Preska.

  On December 4 Judge Preska proposed four trial dates and the parties chose, for now, June 2020. Glavin, who has yet to answer written Press questions about simultaneous services as Special Prosecutor and CJA defense attorney (we still remain hopeful, and open to publishing any explanation), again argued that the Speedy Trial Act does not apply to this proceeding. Time was excluded nevertheless.

 On September 13 in another off shoot of l'affaire Donzinger, SDNY Magistrate Judge Robert W. Lehrburger a discovery hearing was held. The lawyer for Chevron described in great detail the so-called "Donzinger protocol" to search for responsive records. She then said there were still bugs to the protocol, such as a search for Amazon as in the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest turning up documents about what she called the "mail order company" Amazon. Somewhere Jeff Bezos was wincing. Or not.

  Still unexplained is how a lawyer can at once prosecute a case for the United States and represent indigent criminal defendants against it. We hope to have more on this - we did ask.

  On August 12 Donzinger's then new lawyer Andrew J. Frisch appeared before SDNY Judge Loretta Parker and informed her that while follow lawyer Martin Garbus, staying at Truro near Provincetown in Massachusetts, is willing to co-sign Donziger's bond, it is possible he will not travel to the courthouse in Boston, much less New York, in the time frame specified.

 Frisch offered to find another co-signer. Judge Preska gave him until the close of business on Wednesday, August 14. This is a unique hybrid of a case, both criminal and civil; Judge Preska for the record excluded time under the Speedy Trial Act.   Representing the United States in the proceeding was lawyer Rita J. Glavin, who also serves as an appointed criminal defense attorney on the SDNY's Criminal Justice Act panel, which to some might seem a conflict, into which Inner City Press has respectfully inquired.

Inner City Press will continue to cover this and other SDNY and 2nd Circuit cases - watch this site, and there is more on Patreon, here.