Oct. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Carlos Patricio Garcia, who said he is a member of Ecuador’s ruling political party, denied seeking a $3 million bribe from two businessmen who secretly recorded him and turned over the videos to Chevron Corp.

Chevron alleged the recordings show a bribery scheme implicating Ecuadorean government officials and the judge who was overseeing a $27 billion environmental lawsuit against it. Garcia, 55, a car salesman in Quito, said he solicited contributions for Ecuador’s Alianza Pais ruling party and provided transportation and catering at its events. He claimed the oil company was behind the recordings, which he says were manipulated to discredit the country’s court system and to have the case dismissed.

“They made it look like I had all kinds of connections at the top, but I’m just like the baker on the corner: I know a lot of people, I talk to everybody, but I’m just a baker,” he said in a Sept. 29 interview in Quito. “These videos are not the original videos. They are edited versions.”

Chevron, the second-largest U.S. oil company, didn’t edit the recordings and had no involvement with the meetings or making the videos, said Kent Robertson, a spokesman for the San Ramon, California-based oil company.

“Chevron has done nothing to the tapes but to post them to YouTube and the world is free to draw their own conclusions,” Robertson said yesterday in a phone interview. “We have repeatedly stated that we had nothing to do with the meetings or the videos.”

Google Inc.’s YouTube is the most-visited video Web site.

Cleanup Contracts

Chevron said the recordings show that Garcia sought a $3 million bribe from the businessmen to steer government contracts that would result if Chevron lost the case and was ordered to pay cleanup costs. The videos also show that Judge Juan Nunez in Lago Agrio, Ecuador, disclosed his intention to rule against the company, Chevron said.

Nunez, who had been expected by Chevron and lawyers to rule in the case by the end of the year, has denied wrongdoing in media interviews in Ecuador. Nunez couldn’t be immediately reached for comment yesterday after regular business hours.

After the disclosure of the recordings on Aug. 31, Nunez was asked to step down from the case, said Ecuador’s solicitor general, Washington Pesantez. The country’s top prosecutor is investigating the bribery allegations.

Drilling Waste

Ecuadorean residents of the Amazon River basin allege in the lawsuit that Texaco Inc., which Chevron acquired in 2001, polluted their land with oil drilling waste almost two decades ago and didn’t clean it up as required.

Chevron says Texaco cleaned up its share of the pollution at its former oil fields, which were taken over by PetroEcuador, the country’s state-owned oil company. Chevron says it was released from any future liability by an agreement between Texaco and Ecuador. The agreement doesn’t apply to private claims, the Ecuadoreans suing the company say.

Garcia said he has been a member of the Alianza Pais party since 2006. He said he sought donations for the party, catered party rallies and loaned the party a house that he owns in Quito. He said he was approached by an Ecuadorean businessman at a rally in February about getting water-treatment contracts in Ecuador.

The businessman, a contractor for Chevron, said he was working with a U.S. businessman who wanted to invest in water- treatment and pollution-cleanup projects in Ecuador, Garcia said. The Ecuadorean businessman asked for help on how to channel the investments, he said.

That led to two meetings at the house that he had loaned to the party. The gatherings were secretly recorded by the two businessmen, using a pen and watch equipped with tiny cameras, according to Chevron.

‘Gained my Trust’

The two men “gained my trust and used me to set up this lie,” Garcia said. “Sometimes I talk too much, because I trust people. I thought they really wanted to help the country, I thought their ideas were great.”

Eduardo Paredes, a member of Alianza Pais’s political coordination office, said Garcia isn’t registered as a member, though he may have worked in informal party committees.

“The link with Alianza Pais doesn’t exist,” Paredes said in an interview at his office in Quito. “We looked at our member registry database -- we have about 350,000 registered members who signed up to vote in primaries we held in January -- and this person is not registered.”

Relocated for Safety

The first businessman and his family were relocated from Ecuador by Chevron and have received assistance from the company out of concern for his safety, Chevron has said. The company has declined to reveal his location or provide contact information for him.

Cris Arguedas, the man’s attorney, didn’t return a voice- mail message left after regular business hours yesterday. She previously said he “came forward on his own to expose corruption.”

Chevron has declined to speculate about the motives of the businessmen.

The U.S. businessman and his attorney, Mary McNamara, didn’t return voice-mail messages left after regular business hours yesterday.

According to Chevron’s translation of the recordings, Garcia tells the businessmen he spoke by phone with Pierina Correa, the sister of Ecuador President Rafael Correa, about “commissions” and confirms that $1 million will go to “the presidency,” $1 million will go to the judge and $1 million to the plaintiffs in the case.

President, Sister

Garcia said he has met Correa and his sister and other government officials at political rallies and isn’t close to them. He denies speaking to Pierina Correa on the phone. She couldn’t be reached for comment.

Cristian Zambrano, Garcia’s lawyer, said his client was carried away by the prospect of doing business with the two businessmen.

“Garcia is the kind of person who likes to talk so he can look good in front of people, and that’s what he was doing in that video,” Zambrano said in an interview in Quito. “He has no connections.”

The case is Maria Aguinda Salazar v. Chevron Texaco Corp., Nueva Loja Superior Court (Lago Agrio, Ecuador).

To contact the reporters on this story: Karen Gullo in San Francisco at kgullo@bloomberg.net; Adriana Brasileiro in Quito at abrasileiro@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: October 1, 2009 00:01 EDT