Christie’s ally in Bridgegate avoids prison
NEWARK,N.J. — The mastermind of the George Washington Bridge laneclosing plot avoided prison despite devising a politically motivated scheme that used crippling traffic to punish a New Jersey mayor for failing to endorse Gov. Chris Christie.
David Wildstein was sentenced Wednesday to three years’ probation by U.S. District Judge Susan Wigenton, who credited him with helping prosecutors unravel the scandal known as Bridgegate. He testified against two Christie allies who were convicted, Bridget Anne Kelly and Bill Baroni.
Wildstein, who faced as long as 27 months in prison under his plea bargain, was considered Mr. Christie’s “enforcer” at the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, which operates the bridge. Both prosecutors and Wildstein asked Judge Wigenton to impose a probationary term.
Wildstein,55, pleaded guiltyin May 2015, admitting heconspired with Baroni and Kelly to close local access lanesto the bridge and create gridlock.The intent was to punishthe Democratic mayorof Fort Lee, who didn’t endorseMr. Christie’s 2013 re-election bid.
Mr.Christie was never chargedin Bridgegate, but it playeda role in President DonaldTrump bypassing himfor a job in his administration.
Slayings suspect kills self
GARDENDALE,Ala. — A man believed to have fatally shot three relatives, including an ex-wife who had taken out a protective order against him, killed himself Wednesday as officers closed in to arrest him in Florida, police said.
Kenneth Dion Lever, 52, took his own life after deputies spotted him. WPMI-TV quoted Escambia County Sheriff’s office spokesman Maj. Andrew Hobbs as saying Lever shot himself in the parking lot of a credit union.
Authorities had been searching for Lever since three people were shot to death hours earlier at a mobile home park in the Birmingham suburb of Gardendale.
The shootings happened just weeks before Lever was scheduled to go on trial on child sexual abuse charges in Pennsylvania.
Plane was at high altitude
JACKSON,Miss. — The military transport plane that slammed into soybean fields Monday in the Mississippi Delta, killing 15 Marines and a Navy sailor, appears to have developed problems while high in the air, a Marine general said Wednesday.
“Indications are something went wrong at cruise altitude,” Brig. Gen. Bradley S. James told reporters in Itta Bena, Miss. That squares with comments from witnesses interviewed by The Associated Press who said they saw the plane descend from high altitude with an engine smoking.
The crash of the KC-130, which is used to refuel aircraft in flight and transport cargo and troops, killed nine Marines from Newburgh, N.Y., and six Marines and a Navy Corpsman from Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, Gen. James said.
Veteran ‘turned to hate’
TULSA,Okla. — Benjamin Roden,a 28-year-old man facingfederal charges in a pipe bombexplosion outside a northeast Oklahoma Air Forcerecruiting center, “turnedto hate” after he couldn’t complete the training requiredto become a certified electricianin that branch of themilitary, federal prosecutorssaid Wednesday.
Rejectedand out of work, authorities said, the decoratedformer airman harboreda grudge against the AirForce, and also began blamingthat military branch forblocking his attempt to jointhe U.S. Marines.