(Bloomberg) -- Chevron Corp., facing a $27 billion pollution lawsuit in Ecuador, said revelations that an American who secretly recorded the judge overseeing the case was convicted of a drug-smuggling conspiracy won’t affect its reliance on information in the recordings given to the company.

Chevron, the second-largest U.S. oil company, said Aug. 31 that California resident Wayne Hansen was an “American businessman” whose tape recordings of meetings in Ecuador in May and June show that the judge is biased against the company and may have been involved in a $3 million bribery scheme.


“The content of the tapes is what’s really egregious here,” Don Campbell, a Chevron spokesman, said in a phone interview.

Hansen was imprisoned in Texas for a drug-smuggling conspiracy 20 years ago, said his attorney, Trevor Melby, in a phone interview yesterday. On Oct. 29, lawyers for Ecuadoreans suing Chevron publicized a report on Hansen by a private investigator they hired that disclosed the felony conviction.

“I know he spent time in prison,” Melby said. “I could say, ‘No, it didn’t happen,’ but that wouldn’t cut it.”