mobanmarketA federal jury on Friday found two former top aides of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie guilty on all counts for their role in the scandal known as Bridgegate.
That refers to the September 2013 closing of access lanes to the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee, N.J., as an act of political revenge over the failure of that city’s mayor to endorse Christie’s candidacy for governor.
The aides—Bill Baroni, a Christie-appointed former deputy executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and Bridget Anne Kelly, Christie’s former deputy chief of staff—”were each charged with seven counts of conspiracy and wire fraud, including misusing the resources of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the bridge, and violating the rights of the citizens of Fort Lee, N.J., to travel without government restriction,” the New York Times reports.
Over the course of the six-week trial, NJ.com reports, “the most damaging evidence might have been the now-infamous ‘time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee’ email sent by Kelly less than a month before several local access toll lanes at the world’s busiest bridge were inexplicably closed for nearly a week in September 2013, leading to paralyzing gridlock on local streets.”
Baroni and Kelly’s “co-conspirator,” Reuters reports,
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