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ATS ACTIONS:
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The Plaintiffs represented by undersigned counsel oppose the Motion filed by Attorney
James Green,1 D.E. 1808, because it seeks to introduce more tainted evidence into this case, and
(NDAL). Undersigned counsel has no interest in participating in this deposition, or sharing in the
Both Mr. Mancuso Gomez and Mr. Tovar Pupo are clearly Attorney Collingsworth's
witnesses. In May of 2008, Mancuso Gomez appeared with Mr. Collingworth on "60 Minutes,"
where Mancuso Gomez accused not only Chiquita of paying the AUC, but also the Dole Food
1
Mr. Scarola was wise to keep his fingerprints off of this. Mr. Green is co-counsel with him in
case 08-80508-CIV-MARRA.
2
In this Order, the Court ordered the parties to vote on who would conduct each deposition, based
on the number of "cases" represented by each counsel. Each case was defined as a death or injury
to a person, rather than by the number of claims filed by family members in each case. To date,
the other plaintiffs' counsel have never disclosed the total number of cases they represent, or ever
included me in any of their votes, if the voting even occurs. I have approximately 50% of the total
cases according to this calculation, but don't know if this is a majoriyy. Mr. Green didn't confer
with me on this motion, as required by Local Rule 7.1, although his caption states that it applies to
"All ATS Cases." Clearly it does, since it strengthens Chiquita's arguments about witness bribery,
which harms all of the plaintiffs.
1
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"Was Chiquita the only American company that paid you?" Kroft asks Mancuso.
"All companies in the banana region paid. For instance, there was Dole and Del Monte,
which I believe are U.S. companies," Mancuso claims.
Both Dole Food Company and Fresh Del Monte Produce, which is not affiliated with Del
Monte Foods, have issued statements strongly denying that they made payments to the
paramilitaries. Fresh Del Monte Produce said its Colombian operation is "limited to a sales
office which purchases bananas from independent growers."
"Dole and Del Monte say they never paid you any money," Kroft tells Mancuso.
"Chiquita has been honest by acknowledging the reality of the conflict and the payments
that it made; the others also made payments, not only international companies, but also the
national companies in the region," Mancuso says.
"So you're saying Dole and Del Monte are lying?" Kroft asks.
Mancuso has been indicted in the U.S. for smuggling 17 tons of cocaine into the country.
He said he was more than willing to tell U.S prosecutors anything they want to know.
"Has anyone come down here from the United States to talk to you about Dole, or to talk
to you about Del Monte or any other companies?" Kroft asks.
"No one has come from the Department of Justice of the United States to talk to us,"
Mancuso says. "I am taking the opportunity to invite the Department of State and the
Department of Justice, so that they can come and so I can tell them all that they want to
know from us."
So far, the only company that has been charged with paying money to terrorists in
Colombia is the one that turned itself in.
"Do you think if you hadn't gone to the Justice Department and disclosed the situation, that
anything would've happened to you?" Kroft asks.
3
The video itself doesn't appear to be online.
2
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"Well, Mr. Kroft, if we hadn't gone to the Justice Department, we probably would not be
here talking about this whole issue. No one would know about this," Aguirre says.
Since our story aired, Salvatore Mancuso has been extradited to the U.S. to face drug
charges, and the Colombian government has stepped up its investigation of Dole. Two
jailed paramilitary leaders have corroborated Mancuso's claims that they received
protection money from the company.
Id. at 3-4. The Dole case was dismissed after one of Collingsworth's witnesses, Adolfo Enrique
Guevara Cantillo, pulled out his cell phone during his deposition and read a text message from
Ivan Otero4 offering him money to testify that Dole paid the AUC, which Mr. Guevara Cantillo
believed wasn't true. Undersigned counsel has already filed parts of this tesimony in the record,
Id. at 72-73. It is also doubtful that Mr. Mancuso Gomez has personal knowledge of Chiquita's
involvement with the AUC, although he could probably be qualified as an expert on drug
trafficking. Like Mr. Hasbun Mendoza and the other tainted witnesses, Mancuso Gomez will only
open the door for Chiquita to distract the jury with the witness bribery problem.5
Mr. Collingsworth's second witness, Rodrigo Tovar Pupo, was a central figure in the
Drummond RICO conspiracy, although there is no reason to believe Tovar Pupo did anything
wrong himself. Several paramilitary witnesses bribed by Collingsworth and Conrad & Scherer,
LLP claimed that Tovar Pupo was personally paid millions of dollars in cash by Drummond
employee James Atkins. No documentary evidence of these payments was ever found after more
5
I was contacted once by email by Mancuso Gomez' attorney, but never spoke to her on the phone,
and produced this information in response to the Courts' order to fully disclose the evidence of
witness bribery. See D.E. 771. ("I was contacted by Beatriz Quintero, the lawyer for Salvatore
Mancuso, in late 2013. At first I did not know who she represented. She said she represented
various members of the AUC. She asked me if Mr. Mancuso would be called as a witness, and I
replied that he probably would. I will produce my email to Ms Quintero if I can find it. I have not
had any other communications with Mr. Mancuso or Ms. Quintero. Since Mr. Mancuso appeared
on 60 Minutes with Mr. Collingsworth, and accused Dole of paying the AUC, I presume that Mr.
Collingsworth has been communicating with him.") The court may recall that Mr. Simons
contacted the court's chambers ex parte to ask the Court strike my response from the record.
4
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than 10 years of litigation. Only Collingsworth's payments to the AUC were proven in that case.
One of the sources of the payments was Albert van Bilderbeek, a RICO co-defendant whose
brother Hendrik is serving a lengthy prison sentence for laundering money for the AUC. It appears
that Collingsworth and Conrad & Scherer received money from AUC money launderers and used
it to pay imprisoned AUC members to fabricate a case against Drummond, with no other evidence.
This is a long story and there's no reason for the court to get sidetracked with it. Undersigned
In addition, I have known Mr. Tovar Pupo's attorney David Zapp for more than ten years
from other cases, and am quite sure he will advise his client to invoke his right to remain silent. I
asked him about this years ago and he said Rodigo Tovar wouldn't testify.
Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, the plaintiffs represented by undersigned counsel oppose this
testimony, which harms their cases and is only evidence that Mr. Collingsworth and his co-
Respectfully submitted,
Certificate of Service
5
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I hereby certify that on this 24th day of February, 2018, I filed the foregoing document
with the Clerk of the Court using the Court's Electronic Case Filing (ECF) system, which will send
electronic notices to all persons entitled to receive them.