Bill Baroni, Bridget Anne Kelly and David Wildstein waited for the first day of school.

They held off on telling people so their secret would not get out.

They steered cars to a cash lane, to make drivers sweat even more.

For 16 months, only the basic contours of the George Washington Bridge lane-closing scandal have been known: an email called for “some traffic problems in Fort Lee”; a month later, gridlock and an angry mayor.

But an indictment released by federal prosecutors in New Jersey on Friday fills out in more detail the specifics of how and why, presenting the lengths three accused conspirators, aides and an ally of Gov. Chris Christie, went to, and the delight they took, in concocting their scheme and the sham story to cover it up. Two of the three, Mr. Baroni and Ms. Kelly, were indicted, while the third, Mr. Wildstein, pleaded guilty.

The fine-grained intricacies laid out in the legal papers show the three plotting like petulant and juvenile pranksters, using government resources, time and personnel to punish a public official whose sole offense was failing to endorse their political patron. The three were in constant contact, brazenly using government emails, their tone sometimes almost giddy. They even gave the increasingly desperate mayor of Fort Lee their own version of the silent treatment.