Bridgegate: Ex-Christie aides win appeal on one conviction, still guilty on other counts

A pair of aides to former Gov. Chris Christie have been successful in their bid to overturn a federal civil rights conviction for their role in the lane closing scandal at the George Washington Bridge, better known as "Bridgegate."

However, appellate judges ruled that Bill Baroni and Bridget Anne Kelly remain guilty of wire fraud and violation of a law that forbids misappropriating government resources. 

The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals issued an order dismissing the two civil rights counts and directed that Baroni and Kelly be resentenced on the remaining seven counts of the indictment.

The attorney for Kelly said they intend to take their case to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

"While we are pleased that the Third Circuit rejected the civil rights charges, we are disappointed that the court did not similarly reject the government's unprecedented application of the wire fraud and misapplication statutes," attorney Michael Critchley said in a statement. "We still believe that the remaining charges are not legally sustainable and intend to petition the United States Supreme Court to review this case."  

The office of U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito is examining the ruling, a spokesman said. Carpenito, who took office this year, previously served as a lawyer for Christie, defending Christie against an allegation of official misconduct in connection to the Bridgegate scandal. 

“The office is reviewing the opinion and is grateful for the court’s consideration of all of the issues raised in the appeal," Carpenito's spokesman Matt Reilly said in an email regarding Tuesday's appellate decision.

While the court found sufficient evidence to uphold the counts of wire fraud and misappropriating government resources, it found that there has not been enough case law on the underpinning of the civil rights charges — namely that the constitutional right to intrastate travel has not been clearly defined.

Specifically, the court said that "although four circuits (including our own) have found some form of constitutional right to instrastate travel, there is hardly a 'robust consensus' that the right exists, let alone clarity as to its contours."

One legal expert said he expected both the government and the defendants to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court would be inclined to weigh in on the civil rights question, given the dispute between lower courts, but not the other allegations against Kelly and Baroni, according to Stuart Green, professor of law at Rutgers University. 

“I would guess that both parties would appeal and it's quite possible that the Supreme Court would decide to hear the appeal regarding the civil rights claim but not the other charges," Green said. 

The wire fraud counts were upheld, the court said, because sufficient evidence was presented to prove that Kelly and Baroni deprived the "Port Authority of, at minimum, its money in the form of public employee labor." 

Kelly, 45, of Ramsey, is Christie's former deputy chief of staff who kicked off the traffic jams with the now-infamous email declaration that it was “time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.”

Baroni, 46, is the former deputy executive director of the Port Authority and a former state senator and assemblyman.

“We are gratified that the Court of Appeals concluded that Bill Baroni did not violate anyone’s constitutional rights and his sentence has now been vacated,” an attorney for Baroni said in a statement. 

“What remains from this unprecedented prosecution are convictions only for the supposed misapplication of a few thousand dollars of Port Authority resources over less than one week," attorney Michael A. Levy said in the statement. "We disagree that any resources were misapplied and are evaluating further appellate options.”

Baroni was previously sentenced to 24 months in prison and Kelly was sentenced to 18 months. The federal judge who presided over their 2016 trial in Newark has delayed the start of their prison terms until their appeals are exhausted.

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Baroni was appointed in 2010 by Christie to serve as deputy executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Kelly was then the deputy chief of staff for New Jersey’s Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. 

The bizarre plot hatched by Christie's re-election team was ostensibly to punish Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich, a Democrat, who refused to endorse the governor. Christie’s strategy was to win in a landslide, then market himself as a powerful bipartisan voice in a run for the White House in 2016.

But the Bridgegate scandal tripped Christie up, turning him from one of New Jersey’s most popular governors to one of the state’s most despised politicians, and opened the door to Donald Trump’s successful presidential run in 2016 against Hillary Clinton. Christie, who supported Trump and briefly ran his transition team, left office this year with historically low approval ratings.

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The plot was dreamed up by David Wildstein, 56, a veteran Republican political operative whom Christie appointed to a $150,000-a-year job as director of interstate capital projects at the Port Authority. 

Wildstein pleaded guilty to federal charges in the Bridgegate scheme. In return for cooperating with prosecutors and testifying against Baroni and Kelly, Wildstein was spared prison and sentenced to three years of probation. 

He is now editor of the New Jersey Globe, an online site focusing on politics.

In the Bridgegate trial, Wildstein testified that he hoped to impress Christie and earn a spot on his presidential campaign with the traffic jam plot. Without warning to Fort Lee on Sept. 9, 2013 — the first day of school — Wildstein ordered Port Authority workers to reduce local access lanes from three to one from Fort Lee to the George Washington Bridge. 

The impact was immediate and devastating. Streets radiating from the bridge became clogged with bumper-to-bumper traffic. Police cruisers, ambulances and firetrucks were delayed in responding to emergencies. Thousands of commuters trying to use the bridge to get to Manhattan were late for work.

The notion that a public servant would even dream up such a scheme — much less carry it out — near the world’s busiest bridge sparked deep and bitter public outrage across New Jersey and the nation. It also exposed what had been a closely guarded secret about Christie, who marketed himself as a "tell it like it is" politician but was also capable of harshly punishing anyone who criticized him.

Kelly, a single mother of four, sent the email to Wildstein just before the traffic jams began. She claimed in testimony during the trial that Christie knew about the scheme and gave it his tacit approval. She has since apologized for the email. Christie, however, denies he knew anything of the plot. 

Christie was never charged in the Bridgegate plot. Nor were a large group of aides who were linked to it in some way, including several former federal prosecutors and Christie’s campaign strategist, Bill Stepien, who now works as a White House political adviser to Trump.

 Andrew Ford: @AndrewFordNews; 732-643-4281; aford3@gannettnj.com. Charles Stile contributed to this report. 

This article was amended after initial publication to better define the web site edited by David Wildstein.