Ex-Christie ally avoids prison in bridge scandal
David Wildstein, mastermind of the 2013 George Washington Bridge lane-closing scheme, gets probation.
A former political blogger and high school classmate of Gov. Chris Christie’s who masterminded the 2013 George Washington Bridge lane-closing scheme in a misguided political vendetta was sentenced Wednesday to three years of probation, the likely final act in a scandal that swallowed Christie’s presidential hopes and contributed to his political decline.
Wildstein, of Sarasota, Florida, faced 21 to 27 months in prison under a plea agreement, but federal prosecutors asked that he get only probation after his testimony last fall helped convict former Christie staffer Bridget Kelly and Wildstein’s former supervisor, ex-Port Authority of New York and New Jersey executive Bill Baroni.
The three “put our faith in a man who neither earned it nor deserved it,” Wildstein said. “I willingly drank the Kool-Aid of a man I’d known since I was 15 years old.”
The three were charged with closing access lanes to the bridge, among the busiest in the world, during a week in September 2013 to cause massive gridlock in Fort Lee, whose Democratic mayor had declined to endorse the Republican governor’s re-election. Wildstein was the recipient of an infamous email from Kelly that said, “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.”
Kelly was sentenced in March to 18 months in prison, and Baroni was sentenced to 24 months. They have appealed their convictions.
Prosecutors told U.S. District Judge Susan Wigenton there likely would have been no prosecutions in the case if Wildstein hadn’t cooperated.
“He walked into the U.S. attorney’s office and said, ‘I did this, this is why and this is who I did it with,’” U.S. Attorney Lee Cortes said.
Cortes noted that, unlike Kelly, who deleted some emails related to the scheme, Wildstein turned over voluminous texts and emails that incriminated the others and himself.
The judge also sentenced Wildstein to 500 hours of community service and banned him from working in government.
Christie has denied he knew of the plot and wasn’t charged. His spokesman Brian Murray continued to blame Wildstein after the sentencing.
“Mr. Wildstein devised this outrageous scheme all by himself, coerced others to participate in it and then turned himself in to avoid imprisonment for the crimes he has admitted to committing,” Murray said.