Amazon Watch supports the Ecuadorian plaintiffs by publishing a press kit alleging that Chevron (corporate successor to Texaco) should be held accountable for the dumping of of toxic waste water into a region of Ecuador's Amazon rainforest inhabited by more than 30,000 people – purported to be one of the largest oil related contaminations ever, far exceeding that of the Exxon Valdez disaster. In 2011, a decision in Ecuador ordered Chevron to pay $9.5 billion. Ecuador's Supreme Court in 2013 affirmed the trial court judgment in a 222-page decision that documented the extensive and life-threatening levels of oil pollution at dozens of former Chevron well sites in the jungle. In all, eight appellate judges in Ecuador reviewed the evidence against Chevron and affirmed the judgment, as well as dismissing Chevron's allegation of fraud. When Chevron refused to comply with the $9.5 billion judgment against it for contamination in the Lago Agrio oil field, the plaintiffs' lead attorney, Steven R. Donziger, attempted to collect the judgment in Brazil, Argentina, and Canada. Chevron then filed suit in the United States, and relying on the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO Act), alleged that plaintiffs' attorneys in the Lago Agrio litigation had engaged in extortion and fraud by paying almost US$300,000 in bribes to obtain the 2011 court verdict in Ecuador. On 4 Mar 2014, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan concluded that "the course of justice was perverted" and enjoined Donziger from instituting any enforcement proceedings in the United States. Donziger has appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.