In Ecuador, attorneys for Amazonian residents seeking damages from the oil giant Chevron are accusing the company of trying to illegally interfere with their case. The residents have sued Chevron for dumping billions of gallons of toxic oil waste into Ecuador’s rain forest. An independent court-appointed expert has recommended Chevron pay up to $27 billion in compensation. But earlier this week, Chevron released secretly recorded video it says proves the judge in the case has been guilty of judicial corruption. Chevron contends the video shows Judge Juan Nunez discussing ruling in favor of the Amazon residents as well as a $3 million bribe for contracts involving another company. On Thursday, Judge Nunez said the videos were manipulated.

Judge Juan Nunez: “The tapes have been edited, manipulated, and they aren’t evidence of anything. What they are evidence of is the illegal acts carried out by [Chevron]. That’s what it is evidence of. I haven’t met with members of the government. I was never in these meetings. I was paid a visit by Aulo Gelio and Hansen and Borja in the Sucumbios court. They came to see me there and filmed inside my office, inside the court; I didn’t go looking for them.”

Lawyers for the Amazon residents say they’re considering an additional suit against Chevron for trying to disrupt the case. Julio Prieto of the Amazon Defense Coalition dismissed the video as a stall tactic.

Julio Prieto: “This seems to me to be a last-minute strategy, a smokescreen to distract public attention and to gain time. Why are they going to gain time? Because with how bad this looks, the judge is surely going to be removed from the case, and the new judge will have to start everything from zero again, and it would take any human being a considerable amount of time to do that. Now that we’re so close to hearing the sentence, I would say that this is a dirty strategy to win them one more year.”