Federal prosecutors say there is no need to move the trial out of Newark. At the same time, they argued that while there was extensive evidence gathered in the case, so was the government's efforts to disclose it all to the defense.
NEWARK -- Rejecting arguments by defense attorneys in the Bridgegate political corruption scandal that evidence had been withheld or "dumped" in an unusable manner, federal prosecutors Tuesday said they were hiding nothing.
At the same time, the U.S. Attorney's office urged the federal district judge hearing the matter to deny a request to move the high-profile trial out of northern New Jersey over defense claims that the extensive media coverage of the scandal would make it impossible to find an impartial jury.
"The lion's share of media attention seems focused on how the story might affect Governor Christie's presidential campaign," the prosecutors said in a 55-page brief filed just before midnight. "When it comes to defendants' roles and the events underlying the indictment, the media has by and large reported the story factually, not sensationally."
The filing is the latest court salvo in advance of the trial of William Baroni, the former deputy executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and Bridget Anne Kelly, a former deputy chief of staff to the governor, who were indicted in May in connection with the abrupt September 2013 shutdown of local toll lanes at the George Washington Bridge 2013 that led to massive gridlock in the area. The federal investigation into the shutdown eventually came to be known as Bridgegate.
The two former allies of Gov. Chris Christie were charged with conspiring with David Wildstein -- a former political blogger hired by Baroni to a $150,020-a-year patronage position at the Port Authority -- to tie up traffic in Fort Lee to punish Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich, after the Democrat declined to back Christie in his 2013 re-election bid.
Wildstein has already pleaded guilty to his role in the scheme and has implicated Baroni and Kelly. They have each entered not-guilty pleas and have labeled him a liar.
The governor himself has not been implicated or charged with any wrongdoing, nor has his former campaign manager, Bill Stepien, whose name surfaced during the investigation. Christie fired Kelly after she was first implicated in January 2014.
Earlier in the day on Tuesday, attorneys for Baroni made public additional portions of court briefs they initially filed in part under seal, which claimed it was Wildstein -- now the government's main witness in the case -- who pushed to have the bridge lanes closed on the first day of school in Fort Lee to cause the most possible disruption to the community.
Prosecutors have charged that the closures were deliberately targeted for the day when schools opened for the year to "ratchet up the injury" to the town and its mayor.
"The indictment strongly implies that Mr. Baroni was the impetus for starting the lane closure in early September on the first day of school in Fort Lee. However, as the government knows, David Wildstein chose that day as the start of the closures," said attorneys for the former Port Authority executive. "Once again, an act is inappropriately laid at Mr. Baron's feet."
The issue of Wildstein's statements before the grand jury had been subject to a protective order, but were made public after prosecutors said they would not seek to keep that information under seal.
Those defense motions before the court earlier this month also charged that prosecutors have been withholding evidence. In their briefs, the defense complained the government had failed to produce "critical facts essential to their ability to prepare for trial."
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Michael Critchley, who represents Kelly, said the documents produced by the U.S. Attorney's office for examination were not electronically searchable, making them impossible to review. Thousands of other pages were redacted.
But prosecutors, who collected more than 1.5 million pages of documents in the case--including computer data, recordings, telephone records, emails, texts, financial records, materials obtained through search warrants, as well as the affidavits in support of those search warrants--said they provided copies of those records in the same format as they were received.
"The government has no obligation to reformat the discovery, which was provided electronically in a text-searchable format, or to comb the discovery--the majority of which defendants have had for nearly five months--to identify what, if any, materials in the discovery might be favorable to defendants," said prosecutors in their response, authored by assistant U.S. attorneys Lee Cortes Jr., Vikas Khanna and David Feder.
They said while there was no question that the discovery has been extensive, the government's efforts to satisfy its discovery obligations were also extensive, calling the defense characterization of the evidence released in preparation for the trial "a document dump" to be meritless.
In response to allegations by attorney Michael Baldassare, who represents Baroni, that the government had data obtained from the hard drive of Baroni's computer stolen by Wildstein after he was forced to resign from the Port Authority, the prosecution said they had released all "disclosable" records obtained from the drive.
"The government has provided extensive and ongoing discovery and has produced documents electronically, and in the same format it received them," added prosecutors. "Moreover, in an abundance of caution, the government has alerted defendants to particular information that may prove favorable to the defense. Defendants claim that this is not enough."
The U.S. Attorney's office also opposed defense requests by Baroni to move the trial out of northern New Jersey, over the extensive publicity surrounding the Bridgegate charges.
"The press coverage of the lane and toll booth reductions--and, in particular, defendants' alleged roles--has not been nearly as 'prejudicial and conclusory' as Baroni suggests," said prosecutors, noting that while the press coverage has been extensive, it has largely been clustered around new developments in the case.
TIME FOR TRAFFIC PROBLEMS ...
The case, which threw a cloud over Christie's presidential aspirations even before he entered the race for the Republican nomination, grew out of an alleged dirty tricks operation during the governor's 2013 re-election campaign.
Documents released by a state legislative committee investigating the shutdowns before the indictments were handed down revealed that the scheme was launched after Kelly learned that Sokolich was not going to endorse Christie, as the campaign had been led to believe.
"Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee," she told Wildstein in an email that some have labeled the smoking gun in the case, and sent on Aug. 13 -- four weeks before the lane shutdowns at the bridge in early September.
On Friday, Sept. 6, 2013, Wildstein ordered the bridge's general manager to carry out the partial local lane shutdowns the following Monday. The George Washington Bridge is operated by the Port Authority.
The toll lane shutdowns, which narrowed the traffic patterns on approaches from two local Fort Lee streets and cut the number of tollbooths dedicated to local traffic on the span, paralyzed the Bergen County community for days, forcing cars, trucks and buses to back up into local streets while delaying schoolchildren, commuters and emergency vehicles.
Prosecutors have charged that Baroni -- a Christie appointee to the Port Authority -- plotted with Wildstein and Kelly to concoct a story of a phony traffic study at the George Washington Bridge to hide the real motive for the lane closures. Baroni and Kelly were charged with nine counts of conspiracy, fraud and related charges, in the misuse of Port Authority resources to facilitate and later conceal the traffic scheme. If convicted on the most serious counts, they both face up to 20 years in prison and fines of $250,000 per count.
The long-delayed trial, which has been repeatedly rescheduled over requests by defense attorneys for more time to review evidence, is currently set to begin in April.
Ted Sherman may be reached at tsherman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TedShermanSL. Find NJ.com on Facebook.