20161017_144258.jpg

Taking the stand in his own defense, former Port Authority executive Bill Baroni testified Tuesday that he was duped by David Wildstein and believed that the September 2013 politically motivated lane closures at the George Washington Bridge was part of a legitimate traffic study. (Court sketch by Jane Rosenberg)

NEWARK--He said it over an over again, like an incantation, in his first words on the toll lane shutdowns at the George Washington Bridge that led to his indictment on nine counts of conspiracy and fraud.

Bill Baroni said he believed David Wildstein.

The former Port Authority executive, charged with using the world's busiest bridge as a tool of political retribution, took the stand in his own defense Monday, maintaining he knew nothing about a plot to punish the mayor of Fort Lee. He said he believed the closure of local access lanes at the bridge was part of a legitimate traffic study proposed by Wildstein aimed at easing congestion on the bridge's chronically congested upper level.

Testifying at the start of the trial's fifth week, Baroni also disputed an explosive claim by Wildstein that the two men told Gov. Chris Christie about the plot to punish Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich for not endorsing the governor at a 9/11 ceremony in New York City in 2013.

Wildstein, who has pleaded guilty in the case and remains the key witness for the prosecution, testified that he and Baroni "boasted' to the governor about the heavy traffic they had created even as Fort Lee was paralyzed by gridlock.

"You'll be pleased to know Mayor Sokolich is very frustrated," Wildstein said Baroni told the governor.

Baroni, however, recounted a very different version of the 9/11 conversation. He told jurors the three men had a professional conversation about a traffic study aimed at easing congestion at the bridge.

"Was there any mention of political retribution?" he was asked.

"No," he replied.

Christie has denied any involvement in the scheme, which came to light as the governor was preparing his ill-fated run for president.

Bill Baroni takes the stand in Bridgegate trial 9 Gallery: Bill Baroni takes the stand in Bridgegate trial

Baroni said that he believed and trusted Wildstein, a political appointee to the Port Authority and the acknowledged mastermind of the lane closure scheme in September 2013.

"This was his project," he said. "He was going to be responsible for it."

But federal prosecutors, in a hard-edged cross-examination, repeatedly pressed him on why he never returned Sokolich's increasingly frantic phone calls after the lanes were first shut down and the traffic in Fort Lee came to a standstill, blocking emergency vehicles, school buses and drivers headed for the morning commute into New York.

Assistant U.S. attorney Lee Cortes, playing back a voicemail message from the mayor urging that Baroni call him back, asked repeatedly why he did not.

"He wasn't a stranger. You've known him for years," Cortes said.

Baroni said he has asked himself that question a thousand times.

"It's the first thing I think about in the morning and the last thing I think about at night," he said.

He claimed Wildstein told him to maintain "radio silence," repeatedly telling him that, given his cordial relationship with Sokolich, he would "wimp out" and stop the lane closures if he returned the mayor's calls, which would ruin the reputed traffic study.

"He said to me 'let me handle it.' I listened to him," Baroni said, shaking his head and jutting his jaw forward as he spoke to the jury. "I have regretted it ever since."

Baroni, 44, is charged along with Bridget Anne Kelly, a former deputy chief of staff to Christie, with nine counts of conspiracy and fraud in connection with the unauthorized toll lane closures that led to nearly total gridlock in Fort Lee over a four-day period in September 2013

Jurors have already sat through eight days of testimony by Wildstein, a one-time political blogger and Republican operative who served as Baroni's deputy at the Port Authority. He directly implicated Baroni and Kelly.



They have also already heard from Baroni himself as well, after prosecutors rested their case by showing a video of his combative November 2013 testimony before a legislative committee investigating the toll lane shutdowns at the George Washington Bridge, where he also presented data and maps to back up his contention that it was part of a traffic study examining the "fairness" of dedicating special toll lanes just for Fort Lee traffic.



That video came on the heels of testimony from the mayor of Fort Lee who said his repeated calls to the Port Authority were never returned. Wildstein told the jurors that he instructed Baroni to respond to any queries about the traffic with "radio silence." He also said it was Baroni who came up with the idea of scheduling the lane closures on the first day of school.



Defense attorneys, however, have attacked Wildstein as a habitual liar, and say he was the one pulling the strings.



In his testimony Baroni said while Wildstein was under him in the Port Authority's table of organization, it was Wildstein who was calling the shots from Trenton.

"Gov. Christie told me to hire him," he said. "David was responsible for issues that Trenton was interested in. That the governor was interested in."

"Did he report to you?" asked defense attorney Jennifer Mara.

"He did not," Baroni replied. "He reported to Trenton."

Trenton, he said, was Christie.

Baroni also said he had little contact with the governor after David Samson, a confidante of Christie, was named to become chairman of the Port Authority. Samson, he said "made it very, very clear" that he was to be the one who communicated with the governor.

In his direct testimony, he also detailed the angry fallout within the Port Authority, always a battleground over the competing interests between New York and New Jersey, as then-chairman David Samson became involved in the lane shutdown scandal.

Baroni said Samson told him go to Patrick Foye's office and punch the executive director--a New York appointee--in the face for involving himself in New Jersey issues.

"This was a crazy, toxic environment," he said.

Samson himself later resigned from the Port Authority and pleaded guilty to an unrelated corruption charge.

Baroni recounted for jurors a meeting with the governor while attending Sept. 11 memorial events in 2013, on the third day that traffic was backing up in Fort Lee. He denied Wildstein's claim that the three laughed about the closures. He said Wildstein, the Port Authority's former director of interstate capital projects, told the governor the study would allow him to announce that he had fixed the problem of traffic at the bridge.

He described a photo introduced by the prosecution showing the three of them laughing together at one point had nothing to do with the lane closures, Baroni testified. He said they had been chatting about a number of things, he added, including the arrival of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on a motorcycle.

"Are you laughing about the Fort Lee delay?" he was asked.

"Absolutely not," he said.

"Was there any mention of political retribution?" Baroni was asked.

"No," he said.

Prosecutors continue their cross-examination of Baroni on Tuesday, as trial continues before U.S. District Judge Susan D. Wigenton in Newark.

Mark Mueller may be reached at mmueller@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MarkJMueller. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

Ted Sherman may be reached at tsherman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TedShermanSL. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

