Christie's former allies found guilty in Bridgegate trial
NEWARK — Two former associates to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie were convicted Friday of engineering a political payback scheme using the George Washington Bridge and creating massive, hours-long traffic jams in Fort Lee, N.J., that stranded motorists and clogged local streets for five mornings in September 2013.
The scandal helped cut short the governor's presidential ambitions and exposed an administration's bullying and dirty tricks. Christie, alerted to the plot by senior aides, vowed to fight the trial’s depiction of him as an ambitious tyrant who laughed while Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich pleaded for help.
“I will set the record straight in the coming days regarding the lies that were told by the media and in the courtroom,” Christie said in a statement in which he reiterated he “had no knowledge prior to or during these lane realignments, and had no role in authorizing them.”
A federal jury delivered the verdict against Bridget Anne Kelly, Christie’s former deputy chief of staff, and Bill Baroni, the former deputy executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, after a six-week trial. Kelly sat, sobbing, as the guilty verdicts on all seven counts rang out. Baroni showed little emotion.
Who's who of Christie aides convicted of abusing power
They are scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 21.
Baroni’s lawyer, Michael Baldassare, called the prosecution’s case a “disgrace” and lambasted the U.S. Attorney’s Office, saying prosecutors should have “had belief in their own case to charge powerful people and they did not.”
But U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman, in response to questions during a news conference outside the federal courthouse in Newark, said he only charged people where they had “evidence beyond a reasonable doubt” to convict.
Baroni had told jurors that they were swindled into the lane-closing scheme by David Wildstein, who was Baroni’s deputy at the agency and grew up with Christie in Livingston, N.J. Wildstein has pleaded guilty and cooperated with prosecutors, admitting that it was his idea to reduce access lanes at the world’s busiest bridge from three to one to send a message to Sokolich so he would “fully understand that life would be more difficult for him in the second Christie term than it had been in the first.”
Kelly ordered the plot to begin with her infamous "time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee" email.
Both Baldassare and Michael Critchley, Kelly’s lawyer, said they will appeal.
Bridgegate defense asks for mistrial
The jury was in its fifth day considering the legal fates of Kelly and Baroni.
From Day One of the trial, Christie became the central figure in the criminal case against Baroni and Kelly, as prosecutors and defense lawyers both painted the governor as having knowledge of the Bridgegate scheme and control over the people who carried it out.
Baroni and Kelly were found guilty of seven charges of conspiracy, wire fraud and civil rights violations after six weeks of testimony from about 35 witnesses and hundreds of exhibits. Now they face the possibility of years in jail and fines totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Reaction was swift from New Jersey politicians.
“Nothing shocks me about New Jersey anymore,” said state Sen. Loretta Weinberg of Teaneck. “But it saddens me.”
Speaking of Christie, Weinberg said, “I don’t care if he knew about it before, during or after. He set the stage. And other people unfortunately got suckered in.”
The six-week trial was full of political intrigue and competing versions of what actually occurred and why.
Throughout it all, Christie was painted as “the constituency of one” who his aides sought to serve at any cost.
The testimony exposed a culture of lies, fear and intimidation surrounding the governor’s office.
Bridgegate defense asks judge to reverse jury directive
Jurors heard how the resulting traffic jams were the worst seen in Fort Lee since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks forced the complete shutdown of the bridge. Commuters, school buses, police cars, firetrucks and ambulances were stuck in what Sokolich described as "concrete gridlock."
"I was petrified of further retribution," Sokolich said during his testimony, explaining that he was particularly anxious about a billion-dollar redevelopment project in Fort Lee that he feared could get tied up if "they" wanted to punish him.
Patrick Foye, the executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, testified that even after he ordered the reopening of the lanes on the fifth morning of the closures, Baroni tried to have the lanes shut down again.
Bridgegate defense asks judge to reverse jury directive
Baroni requested two meetings with Foye that morning of Sept. 13, 2013. Foye said he asked his chief of staff, John Ma, to act as a witness at the first meeting, held in Foye's office, because "I thought something weird and terribly problematic had happened and I wanted John, who I trust implicitly, to be in the room and to hear the same thing I did."
Wildstein, over six full days of questioning by attorneys, described a culture under Christie that demands loyalty and doled out punishment to those who did not back the governor or fall in line with his agenda.
Under questioning, Wildstein acknowledged working with the governor's office to craft and approve statements to the media and, at other times, to intimidate.
As the trial closed this week, defense lawyers sought to persuade Judge Susan D. Wigenton to declare a mistrial after it became clear that the jury would not have to consider those motives in the case — only whether Baroni and Kelly intentionally conspired to close the lanes to the bridge.
Wigenton did not respond to that motion for the full mistrial but did seal closed-door proceedings from Wednesday because their “disclosure may complicate the court’s efforts to ensure a fair trial,” she wrote.
Follow Dustin Racioppi on Twitter: @dracioppi
Related:
5 things we still don’t know about the Bridgegate scandal
Feds: Bridgegate allies 'loyal lieutenants' of Christie
Bridgegate prosecutors set for closing arguments
Bridgegate: Aide worried she had been set up to take the fall