Nicaraguan Workers Deny
Conspiracy Against Dole
By Marcos Aleman (AP)
MANAGUA - Several banana workers denied
Friday they were part of a conspiracy to
defraud Dole Foods Co. by falsely claiming
in a damage lawsuit to have worked on a
banana plantation and been made sterile by
pesticides.
Seven workers at a news conference in
Nicaragua, where the contamination allegedly
occurred in the 1970s, accused Dole of
having tricked or bribed them into casting
doubt on claims in the suit that led to a
$2.3 million judgment against the company.
They said they wrongly agreed to testify on
behalf of Dole in a court case under way in
Los Angeles that there had been a fraud in
the recruiting or testing of some of the
plaintiffs in the suit.
"They tricked and bribed humble farm workers
who, out of poverty, agreed to lie to
overturn the ruling," said lawyer Antonio
Hernandez. About 1,000 former workers
gathered for the Friday event.
A judge in Los Angles is considering
throwing out the 2007 damages award for
workers exposed to the pesticide DBCP. Some
of the workers involved in the U.S. lawsuit
against Dole were later found either not to
have been made sterile by pesticides or
never to have worked at the company's
plantations.
Francisco Cano Centeno, 50, who said he
worked as a plantation foreman, said Dole
offered him money to testify in the latest
court case.
"What they wanted was for me to testify that
the tests had been altered, that they had
not worked on the banana plantation, and
that for saying what they wanted, they would
give me $225,000," Cano Centeno said.
"I agreed to lie because they know that we
are poor and know how to use you. They took
me to Costa Rica and there I said everything
they asked of me."
He regrets the decision now, Centeno said.
"They tricked me, they tricked all of us.
They gave me just $300, that's it."
An attorney for Dole denied the company
tried to bribe witnesses.
Lawyer Scott Edelman said he could not
confirm whether any of the workers at the
Nicaragua news conference had testified for
Dole in the suit. He said he is prohibited
from naming any of the "John Doe" witnesses
in the case because a judge has sealed their
identities.
But, Edelman said, "any allegation that
Dole's investigators bribed or offered to
bribe any witnesses is categorically false."
"As the court has already found, these
lawyers (for the original damage suit) have
recruited fake plaintiffs and threatened and
intimidated witnesses not to come forward.
This is more of the same," Edelman said.
"This is a calculated effort to disrupt
current proceedings addressing their
conspiracy and to intimidate witnesses and
the court."
According to Dole lawyers, the plaintiffs, a
Nicaraguan judge and U.S. lawyers conspired
to defraud the banana company of millions of
dollars.
Banana workers' leader Francisco Palacios
said the statements from workers at the news
conference prove that the workers who sued
Dole told the truth. "Nemagon (a name for
the pesticide used at the plantation) did
harm us, many are sick," he said. |
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