Former Christie Aides Get Prison for Bridge Plot

(29 Mar 2017) Two former aides to Gov. Chris Christie were sentenced to prison Wednesday for their role in a political revenge plot involving traffic jams at the country's busiest bridge, a scandal that sank the Republican's White House ambitions and continues to hang over his final year in office. Bill Baroni, Christie's appointee to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, was sentenced to two years in prison, and Bridget Kelly, Christie's former deputy chief of staff, was sentenced to 18 months in prison at separate hearings in the 2013 George Washington Bridge lane-closing case. Both must also serve 500 hours of community service. U.S. Judge Susan Wigenton told both it was clear there was never a legitimate traffic study, as they have claimed, and said the 45-year-old Baroni misled a legislative committee by blaming the gridlock on one Christie was not charged with any wrongdoing and prosecutors have declined to pursue a citizen's criminal complaint lodged against him, but questions remain over when, and how much, he knew about the plan to realign access lanes from Fort Lee to the bridge. His version of events - that he was not aware that anyone in his office was involved until months after the fact - was contradicted by testimony from multiple people. The scandal derailed Christie's presidential aspirations and likely cost him a chance to be President Donald Trump's running mate. He has turned his attention in his final year in office to addressing the state's opioid epidemic and was at the White House on Wednesday, where he was picked by Trump to lead a drug addiction task force. Kelly and Baroni were convicted in November of all counts against them, including wire fraud, conspiracy and misusing the bridge for improper purposes. The government's star witness, David Wildstein, testified that he and the co-defendants sought to retaliate against a Democratic mayor for not endorsing Christie's re-election. Text messages and emails produced at trial showed Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich's increasingly desperate pleas for help being ignored by Kelly and Baroni. You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/607ce28f0b7bc2702a4165027abcc803 Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork