THE LATEST: Bridget Kelly is ‘unbelievably happy’ as U.S. Supreme Court agrees to hear Bridgegate case, attorney says

Bridget Anne Kelly, the one-time aide to former Gov. Chris Christie whose “time for some traffic problems” email became a key focal point of the Bridgegate corruption scandal, will get a final chance to argue she was wrongfully convicted.

As its term ended, the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear Kelly’s case — just weeks before she is due to report to federal prison — reviving a case more than five years old that many thought was finally over.

Its decision to review her conviction could raise new questions about the ability of the government to take on major political prosecutions, by a court that has taken aim at a number of other high-profile corruption cases in recent years.

In their filings with the court, lawyers for Kelly had argued that federal prosecutors used criminal fraud statutes typically used in cases of personal gain, such as bribery, to instead criminalize routine political behavior.

“If there is one thing this country does not need right now, it is a rule of law allowing a public official to be locked up based on a jury determination that she ‘lied’ by purporting to act in the public interest or by concealing her ‘political’ purposes,” they wrote.

The order gave no indication on how the court viewed the case, or whether it disagreed with an appeals court ruling upholding the convictions in Bridgegate. It simply meant at least four justices felt it was necessary to review the matter.

Kelly’s attorney, Michael Critchley of Roseland, was elated with the decision.

“I had tears in my eyes,” he said, shortly after giving the news to Kelly. “She’s unbelievably happy. To say we’re excited would be an understatement.”

He said the defense had argued from the start before the trial judge, U.S. District Judge Susan Wigenton, that what was alleged in the case did not constitute criminal activity.

“It was never a crime,” said Critchley, who had repeatedly argued during trial that the case was “an indictment in search of a crime.”

The U.S. Attorney’s office for New Jersey, which prosecuted the case, said it had no comment.

An attorney for Bill Baroni, Kelly’s co-defendant in the case who is already serving an 18-month prison term, said Baroni was a full party to the Supreme Court appeal.

“Bill Baroni is grateful to the Supreme Court for choosing to accept this case, and he is confident that the court will conclude that neither he nor Bridget Kelly committed any crime,” said Michael A. Levy, who was lead counsel for the appeal.

Christie, who initially declined comment, later in an appearance on ABC’s “The View" said he never thought any federal laws were broken.

“I’ve always said that that prosecution was a politically motivated, politically vindictive prosecution, that there was no federal crime there," Christie told viewers.

The order from the Supreme Court came just two weeks before Kelly, a 46-year-old mother of four, is due to report to federal prison. She has remained free on bail pending her appeal.

Kelly’s attorneys filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with the high court in February in the case that grew out of a hard-edged scheme of political retribution in the heat of the governor’s re-election campaign. The court met last Thursday to decide whether her case would move forward, announcing its decision without explanation.

Kelly, together with Baroni, the former deputy executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, were found guilty in November 2016 of plotting to shut down of several local access lanes to the toll plaza of the George Washington Bridge over four days in 2013 in a scheme of retaliation.

Federal prosecutors said the traffic diversion at the world’s busiest bridge was intended to cause massive gridlock in Fort Lee, to send a message to Mayor Mark Sokolich after the Democratic mayor reversed course on an expected endorsement of Christie, a Republican, during the governor’s 2013 re-election campaign. The plot became widely known as Bridgegate.

Kelly was the author of the now-infamous “time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee” email, sent shortly before the orange cones went up at the local toll lanes at the bridge. It was a message that prosecutors pointed to as a smoking gun in the case and was a key piece of evidence used against her.

During her trial, Kelly testified that she told Christie in advance about the plan to close toll lanes at the bridge, and told the jury she had gotten his approval for what she thought was a legitimate traffic study. She claimed the “traffic problems” email to David Wildstein, a political appointee to the Port Authority and the admitted mastermind who came up with the toll lane shutdown, and only referred to the implementation of the traffic study. She also said that other higher-ups in the governor’s inner circle were all well-aware of what was going on in Fort Lee before it became public.

Christie was never charged with any wrongdoing and denied any knowledge of the plan. The incident at the bridge cast a shadow over his administration after the criminal investigation, however, did little to help his failed 2016 presidential campaign.

Kelly was sentenced in April to 13 months in prison for her part in the conspiracy, and is scheduled to report to a minimum-security camp for female inmates in West Virginia next month. Baroni, who joined Kelly in the Supreme Court appeal, is already serving his prison sentence at the Loretto Federal Correctional Institution in Pennsylvania.

Wildstein pleaded guilty and became a prosecution witness against Baroni and Kelly. He served no prison time, sentenced to three years’ probation and 500 hours of community service.

Bill Baroni, the former deputy executive director of the Port Authority, now in prison serving an 18-month sentence for his role in Bridgegate.NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

After they were found guilty, Kelly and Baroni appealed their case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. But the court last year upheld a major portion of their convictions, rebuking the two in an opion that said there was “no legitimate justification” for their conduct. The three-judge panel, however, cleared them of some of the counts they had been found guilty of in 2016, which led to a cut in their prison sentences.

In briefs filed with the U.S. Supreme Court, attorneys for Kelly argued that the prosecution had criminalized what they called routine political behavior.

“If there is one thing this country does not need right now, it is a rule of law allowing a public official to be locked up based on a jury determination that she ‘lied’ by purporting to act in the public interest or by concealing her ‘political’ purposes. There is no end to the bipartisan mischief such a regime would facilitate, or the chilling effect it would carry,” they wrote.

They said such this reasoning “invites indictment of every public official who justifies her actions on policy grounds without confessing the base political calculus that lies beneath—which is to say, every official.”

Federal prosecutors rejected the arguments in opposing a review by the court. They said the fact that the lane closures at the George Washington Bridge may have been politically motivated were irrelevant to Kelly’s guilt.

Whether Kelly and Baroni “were motivated by political animus toward the mayor of Fort Lee or by a desire for personal gain, their criminal liability would be unchanged, because their conduct constituted a scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses,” they wrote.

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

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