CHINANDEGA, NICARAGUA, AND LOS ANGELES — In the sweltering hub of Nicaragua's once-thriving banana industry, Juan Dominguez saw an opportunity.
He arrived in Chinandega in 2002, shortly after watching a CNN report about men claiming they had become sterile from exposure to DBCP, a pesticide used on banana plantations in the 1970s. Until then, Dominguez was best known as the mustachioed personal injury lawyer pictured on the backs of Los Angeles buses and had no experience in international law.
"I'm not a religious man," he said recently, "but this felt like a calling."
Today, it feels more like a disaster.
Dominguez stands accused by a judge of participating in a broad conspiracy built on phony claims. Cases that he expected would go to trial this year have been thrown out. A $3.2-million jury verdict on behalf of six plaintiffs in 2007, which he had hoped would be the first of many victories against Dole Food Co. and Dow Chemical Co., is likely to be overturned.
The accusations against him came in a highly unusual proceeding in which Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Victoria Chaney relied on secret testimony collected by Dole. Dominguez and other plaintiffs' attorneys had set out to find legitimate claims but turned to fraud when they found few, she wrote. What resulted was a "heinous" scheme "cemented together by human greed and avarice," she said in making her ruling.
Dole, which ran the banana plantations at the time, has used the ruling to cast doubt on dozens of other DBCP claims in U.S. courts, including efforts to enforce tens of millions of dollars in judgments from courts in Nicaragua. "An international legal shakedown," Theodore Boutrous, an attorney for Dole, calls the claims.
Dominguez, 52, now faces investigations by the State Bar of California and scrutiny by the U.S. Department of Justice.
He said he has done nothing wrong: "I don't engage in anything illegal or unethical."
"The whole thing is a crazy nightmare," he said.
In Nicaragua, the judge's ruling was widely met with disgust. "That Chaney," people say. The local version of events blames the multinational companies and their pesticide for much of what ails people. Anyone who disagrees is accused of being paid by Dole.
