Bridgegate: Plot to foul bridge traffic ID'd 2 years earlier

NEWARK — New revelations linking New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s former campaign manager and an ex-Bergen County executive to the Bridgegate scandal spilled out Monday as the government’s star witness took jurors inside the politically motivated plot to paralyze Fort Lee with traffic in 2013.

Weeks before he set the scheme in motion, David Wildstein testified that he alerted William “Pat” Schuber, a commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, of the plan to create gridlock by closing access lanes to the George Washington Bridge.

“I viewed Mr. Schuber as a loyal member of Governor Christie’s team,” Wildstein told the jury.

Wildstein said he met Schuber, a Republican who had been Bergen’s second county executive, for breakfast at a diner they frequented. “In a couple of weeks, there’s going to be some significant traffic in Fort Lee,” Wildstein said he told Schuber.

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Wildstein explained that “the instructions came from the governor’s office,” and that Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich was the reason for the traffic, he said.

Schuber, who is one of six Port Authority commissioners appointed by Christie, said he understood, Wildstein testified.

Schuber’s attorney, Salvatore Alfano, said Schuber “categorically denies that he had any conversation with Wildstein about the lane closures.”

Wildstein: How the plot unfolded

In the witness box in Newark for a second day, Wildstein described how the plot unfolded during 4½ hours of testimony at the trial of two former allies of Christie: Bill Baroni, an ex-deputy executive director of the Port Authority, and Bridget Anne Kelly, the governor’s former deputy chief of staff.

Wildstein, Baroni’s lieutenant at the Port Authority before they both resigned, is testifying in the hope of receiving a lighter sentence. He pleaded guilty last year to charges he conspired with Baroni and Kelly to punish Sokolich, a Democrat, for refusing to endorse Christie’s 2013 re-election campaign.

Christie has figured prominently throughout the trial, as testimony continues to place the governor’s office and aides at the center of the scheme to reduce the local access lanes to the world’s busiest bridge from three to one to punish a small-town mayor.

Wildstein said he contacted Schuber because he is from Bergen County and would likely receive complaints once the closures took effect. Wildstein said he suggested that any complaints be referred to Baroni, and that Schuber agreed to do so.

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As part of the scheme, Wildstein testified that Baroni and Kelly agreed to maintain “radio silence,” ignoring Sokolich’s pleas for help and warnings that the traffic jams created over five mornings in September 2013 hampered the ability of police, ambulances and firefighters to respond to emergencies.

Wildstein testified that he first identified the Fort Lee access lanes to the bridge as a “potential leverage point” against Sokolich in 2011 and shared the idea with Bill Stepien, then a deputy chief of staff to the governor, Kelly, who succeeded Stepien in that post, and Baroni, the governor’s top executive appointee at the Port Authority, which owns and operates the bridge.

Wildstein said he revisited the idea two years later in the run-up to the governor’s reelection campaign, telling Kelly “that if she wants the Port Authority to close down those Fort Lee lanes and put some pressure on Mayor Sokolich that that could be done.”

Sokolich had been among scores of local Democrats that the Christie camp targeted for endorsements and actively courted with favors in a bid to demonstrate the governor’s bipartisan appeal.

With less than three months to the election, Wildstein testified that he was “a little surprised” when Kelly sent him the email on Aug. 13, 2013, that said: “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.”

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Asked by Assistant U.S. Attorney Lee Cortes why he believed Kelly wanted the lanes closed, Wildstein said: “Miss Kelly told me that Mayor Sokolich was not endorsing Governor Christie.”

He added that she wanted to send “a message” to Sokolich “that life would be more difficult” for him in Christie’s second term.

Sokolich and Fort Lee had received favorable treatment from the Port Authority during Christie’s first term.

Wildstein said he told Baroni that Kelly wanted the Fort Lee lanes closed to punish the mayor for not endorsing the governor and Baroni was fine with it.

Wildstein said that in August 2013 he also called Stepien, who by that time was managing Christie’s re-election campaign, to tell him Kelly had approved the lane closures and that he was moving forward with the plan.

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Stepien, who is now working on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, asked “what story do we use,” Wildstein said. “And I explained to Mr. Stepien that I was going to create the cover of a traffic study.”

Wildstein, who noted he always spoke to Kelly and Baroni separately, said they approved of the traffic study cover story that would be fed to the local officials, the media, Port Authority employees and anyone who questioned the reason for the lane realignments.

'To create as big a traffic jam as possible'

Wildstein also spoke to the agency’s chief engineer and bridge manager about implementing the lane changes on Sept. 9, 2013, and conducting a study to determine whether that improved traffic flow for vehicles using the highway approaches to the bridge.

Wildstein said he met with Robert Durando, the bridge’s general manager, to make sure there was no legal agreement or agency action that segregated three toll booth lanes on the upper plaza for Fort Lee’s use. Durando told him it was simply an agreement between a prior mayor and a prior governor, he said.

Wildstein said he originally planned to close all three local access lanes from Fort Lee but engineers convinced him to keep the traffic cones to one lane leading to a cash toll booth to reduce the potential for “side swipe” accidents in the merging traffic.

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He also discussed with Kelly and Baroni not notifying Fort Lee in advance of the lane closures, so that the town would be taken by surprise, he said. “The purpose was to create as big a traffic jam as possible,” Wildstein said.

They decided to wait until the first day of school to create maximum chaos, he said.

Describing it as “concrete gridlock,” Sokolich testified last week that the closures caused the worst traffic jams in the town since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when the bridge was shut down completely.

Kelly and Baroni face nine counts of conspiracy, misusing agency property, wire fraud and violating the civil rights of Fort Lee residents to travel freely.

Wildstein is expected to be on the stand for at least three more days.

Follow Paul Berger on Twitter: @pdberger