Two ‘Bridgegate’ convictions overturned
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously overturned the convictions of two defendants in the “Bridgegate” scandal that snarled traffic on the world’s busiest bridge, upended New Jersey politics and doomed the presidential aspirations of Chris Christie, the state’s governor at the time.
The case resulted from a decision in 2013 by associates of Christie to close access lanes to the George Washington Bridge in a scheme that was meant to punish one of the governor’s political opponents and ended up creating four days of enormous traffic jams that posed grave risks to public safety.
That was an abuse of power, the Supreme Court ruled, but not a federal crime.
The associates, Bridget Anne Kelly and Bill Baroni, were convicted of wire fraud and related federal charges for their roles in concocting what they said was a “traffic study” that caused extreme delays for motorists seeking to cross the bridge from Fort Lee, N.J., to Manhattan.
Fort Lee’s mayor, Democrat Mark Sokolich, had rebuffed a request to endorse Christie, and this was his punishment. Christie has denied any knowledge of the scheme.
“Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee,” Kelly, an aide to Christie, wrote in an email to officials at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the bridge.
Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the court, called the communication “an admirably concise email.”
She went on to write that “the evidence the jury heard no doubt shows wrongdoing — deception, corruption, abuse of power.”
“But the federal fraud statutes at issue do not criminalize all such conduct,” she wrote. “Under settled precedent, the officials could violate those laws only if an object of their dishonesty was to obtain the Port Authority’s money or property.”
And, she wrote, “the realignment of the toll lanes was an exercise of regulatory power — something this court has already held fails to meet the statutes’ property requirement.”
The controversy touched off by the traffic diversion helped sink Christie’s presidential campaign in 2016.
In a statement Thursday, Christie said he had been vindicated.
The self-proclaimed mastermind of the plan, David Wildstein, a former Port Authority official who eventually pleaded guilty, said he was remorseful for the lane-closing scheme.
“The conduct by me and others was still wrong,” Wildstein said.