On March 29, the US Appeals Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit turned down Donziger’s motion to be released on bail while awaiting trial for contempt. Donziger’s attorneys argued before the court earlier in the month that he was not a flight risk, but the three-judge panel rejected their plea, keeping Donziger at home, monitored by an ankle bracelet.

Garbus, an 86-year-old veteran of the US courtrooms, is no alarmist, but he explained to me how such a minor charge could keep Donziger captive for so long: “Steven Donziger is being prosecuted for a misdemeanor, a petty charge with a maximum sentence of six months in prison. But he could eventually end up confined to his home for more than five years. By the time of the trial, he will have served 630 days under house arrest. Add to that the six months prison time he could get if convicted. And then, afterward, he could be sentenced to two years of probation, which he might also have to serve under house arrest.”

This would be unprecedented. No lawyer convicted of contempt in New York has ever been held for more than 90 days in home confinement.

In 2011, the Ecuadorean courts awarded 30,000 plaintiffs, mostly farmers and Indigenous people, billions of dollars to clean up the polluted soil and to improve the region’s rudimentary health facilities. But Chevron has refused to pay, claiming that Donziger committed fraud to win the case. Meanwhile, his clients in eastern Ecuador live on poisoned land and struggle to find safe water. Five peer-reviewed scientific studies show an increased risk of cancer and other threats to health in the area. (Chevron funded its own peer-reviewed study, which claims there is no such increased risk.)

But Chevron’s strategy could be backfiring. Over the past few months, a global movement has grown to defend Donziger and his Ecuadorean clients. Some 55 Nobel Prize winners signed a letter defending Donziger; 475 lawyers and human rights defenders released a similar appeal. A blue-ribbon legal Monitoring Committee is closely following Donziger’s case; the group includes Nadine Strossen, the former head of the American Civil Liberties Union, and Michael Tigar, the distinguished defense attorney and human rights activist.

This man was harshly punished for winning a court case against a corrupt corporation.