| New York Eastern District Court | |
| Case #: | 2:07-cv-01472 |
| Nature of Suit | 440 Civil Rights - Other Civil Rights |
| Cause | 42:1983 Civil Rights Act |
| Case Filed: | Apr 09, 2007 |
| Terminated: | May 11, 2009 |
 GPO Dec 10 2007 ORDER re 24,28,29,30: See attached order for details. Ordered by Magistrate Judge Arlene R. Lindsay on December 10, 2007. c/ecf (Miller, Dina) |
Why did the Supreme Court take on Bridgegate?
Posted Jul 2, 2019
Aristide Economopoulos | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to take on a case of Jersey-style political hardball involving a scheme to back up traffic on the world's busiest bridge to punish a mayor.
The chances seemed almost nil the U.S. Supreme Court would take the case.
One of the defendants was packing for prison. The other was already there, opting not to wait for a decision on an appeal that many believed unlikely to succeed.
But the still-shocking decision by the high court on Friday to review the Bridgegate case gave new hope to Bridget Anne Kelly and Bill Baroni, who maintain their criminal convictions in the well-publicized scheme of Jersey-style political retribution that came to light more than five years ago were unjust.
At the same time, the government’s novel use of an anti-theft and anti-bribery statue to pursue corruption charges against the two former public officials could end up dealing yet another blow for the Justice Department, which has seen a number of major corruption cases reversed by a skeptical court in recent years.
“This is huge,” declared Gerald Krovatin, one of the state’s top defense lawyers, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s acceptance of the case. “A number of the justices obviously have serious questions about the government’s underlying theory of criminal liability, which the defense attorneys have been attacking since day one.”
Former federal prosecutor Robert A. Mintz called the Supreme Court move another stunning turn of events, in a case marked from the start by shocking revelations.
“While we do not know why the court decided to hear the case, the Supreme Court has reined in prosecutors in other recent decisions where they believed that the government went too far in criminalizing political conduct,” explained Mintz, now a defense attorney with McCarter & English in Newark. “While there is no way to predict how the court may rule on this appeal, what is clear is that the last chapter in the Bridgegate case has yet to be written.”
A MESSAGE TO A MAYOR
The facts of the case were never much in doubt. In September 2013, Port Authority police were ordered with little explanation to move the orange traffic cones at the George Washington Bridge, closing off some of the toll lanes earmarked for local traffic coming out of Fort Lee.
The effect was like water unable to flow down a suddenly clogged drain. Cars, trucks and buses immediately began backing up into the streets around the toll plaza, causing massive and punishing gridlock in Fort Lee on the first day of school. Commuters fumed for hours in lines of cars that went nowhere, emergency vehicles were unable to get through town, and kids were trapped on school buses. For four and a half days, the closures continued, despite mounting public outcry.
Bill Baroni and Bridget Anne Kelly, whose case will be taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Federal prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s office in New Jersey said the lane closures were orchestrated by Kelly, a former deputy chief of staff to then-Gov. Chris Christie, and Baroni, who was serving as the state’s top executive at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the bridge. They said the plot was intended to send a clear message to Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich after the Democratic mayor backed off an expected endorsement of Christie, a Republican, during the governor’s 2013 re-election campaign.
The scheme became widely known as Bridgegate.
Both Kelly and Baroni were found guilty in November 2016 of fraud and conspiracy, largely on the testimony of David Wildstein, a political appointee to the Port Authority and architect of the shutdown, who admitted coming up with the idea of the shutdown in an effort to boost Christie’s candidacy, and blaming it on a non-existent traffic study.
The governor was never charged with any wrongdoing and denied any knowledge of the plan, which would ultimately play a part in blowing up Christie’s 2016 presidential campaign.
While there are state corruption statutes on official misconduct, the New Jersey Attorney General’s office did not look into what happened at the George Washington Bridge. But the U.S. Attorney’s office spent 16 months investigating, finally returning indictments in May 2015. And from Day One, attorneys for both Kelly and Baroni argued that whatever happened at the George Washington Bridge, it was not a federal crime.
In briefs filed with U.S. District Judge Susan Wigenton, the trial judge in the case, defense attorneys said the government cited laws normally used in theft and bribery cases to level charges where no theft or bribery was alleged to have occurred. They argued that a federal anti-corruption statute being used in the case was in “completely uncharted water” because neither Kelly nor Baroni had profited from the lane closures at the bridge.
Wigenton was unconvinced and the U.S. Court of Appeals was also unmoved. However, the argument was renewed by defense attorneys in seeking a review by the Supreme Court.
CRIMINALIZING POLITICAL BEHAVIOR
In briefs filed with the court, attorneys for Kelly argued that the prosecution had criminalized what they called routine political behavior.
“If there is one thing this country does not need right now, it is a rule of law allowing a public official to be locked up based on a jury determination that she ‘lied’ by purporting to act in the public interest or by concealing her ‘political’ purposes. There is no end to the bipartisan mischief such a regime would facilitate, or the chilling effect it would carry,” they wrote.
The case was no different, they said, from the mayor who approves a grant to help a political supporter, the state official who orders an environmental study to please an interest group, or the federal prosecutor who pursues a case to boost his own political ambitions.
They were joined in the appeal before the court by attorneys for former Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell and former media mogul Conrad Black, calling the prosecution an overreach by the Justice Department.
The Supreme Court threw out the conviction of McDonnell on charges he had accepted $175,000 in cash and gifts from a Richmond businessman while arranging meetings for him with state officials. The court ruled that the former governor’s activities on behalf of his patron were not considered “official acts,” and said despite the nature of the charges, prosecutors needed to show a direct quid pro quo — that the official did something in his official capacity in return for the gifts.
Black's conviction on two fraud charges in connection with a case alleging the misuse of company funds was reversed by the court because the jury had been given unclear instructions. While the court upheld his conviction on charges obstruction of justice, President Donald Trump pardoned him in May.
Federal prosecutors rejected the arguments, opposing a review by the court. They said the fact that the lane closures at the George Washington Bridge may have been politically motivated were irrelevant to Kelly’s guilt.
Whether Kelly and Baroni “were motivated by political animus toward the mayor of Fort Lee or by a desire for personal gain, their criminal liability would be unchanged, because their conduct constituted a scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses,” they wrote.
The odds of getting a case before the Supreme Courts are always high, said attorney Joseph A. Hayden Jr., a former state prosecutor. Less than two out of 100 petitions for review are accepted by the court.
Indeed, Baroni had already reported to federal prison in April, and was serving an 18-month term before his attorneys on Monday sought his release on bail in the wake of the Supreme Court decision. Wigenton quickly signed an order to get him out of prison pending the ongoing appeal.
Kelly seemed resigned to her fate as well, and was preparing to report to a woman’s prison in West Virginia in 10 days. Her attorneys have sought a delay in her reporting date.
But while few cases are accepted for review, Hayden believes that the Supreme Court took the case because the Justice Department has “pushed the envelope” on what constitutes a crime.“
The real story to me is that our Supreme Court is open to challenges to these aggressive prosecutors making crimes out of normal conduct,” said Hayden.
Others, though, say that even without the payoff of a bribe or gift, the case of Bridgegate was still one of corruption.
“It still walks like and duck and quacks like a duck,” said criminal defense attorney Dennis T. Kearney, former assistant prosecutor with the Essex County Prosecutor’s office. "Was it a scheme to defraud? It certainly looks like it. They lied about their intentions.”
If the court does throw out the convictions, former federal prosecutor Lee Vartan expects to see a “substantial long-term impact” on these types of corruption cases.
Still, he wonders what the court will do.
“An argument can certainly be made that the prosecution criminalized ‘politics,’” Vartan said. “At the same time, it was not routine politics, and the government’s theory was not honest services fraud, but rather theft of government resources.”
Ted Sherman may be reached at tsherman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TedShermanSL. Facebook: @TedSherman.reporter. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
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