Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich arrives at Martin Luther King, Jr., Federal Court for a hearing Tuesday in Newark. | AP Photo/Julio Cortez In Bridgegate trial, Sokolich details pressure to endorse Christie

NEWARK — Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich testified in U.S. District Court on Tuesday that an aide to Gov. Chris Christie repeatedly pressured him to endorse the Republican’s re-election campaign, first telling him that other Democrats had done so before eventually asking directly for his support.

The request by Matt Mowers, a staffer in the governor’s Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, came in the weeks leading up to the George Washington Bridge lane closures — as did the mayor’s refusal to do so, Sokolich said on Tuesday as he took the stand in the trial around the George Washington Bridge scandal.


The so-called Bridgegate incident, in which two lanes leading to the bridge were closed, caused days of gridlock in the Bergen County town and surrounding communities, allegedly succeeding in punishing Sokolich, which is what prosecutors say several Christie allies sought.

The alleged hostility followed years of cordial relations between Sokolich and the governor’s office, which had worked hard to build friendships with Democratic politicians across the state.

For Sokolich, that meant some special attention — or what felt like it to him. He was invited to football games in the governor’s box at Metlife Stadium and to holiday cocktail parties; he was twice granted VIP access to the World Trade Center construction site and Ground Zero; and he had a nearly-two-hour lunch with Christie and a few other mayors at the governor’s mansion in Princeton, Sokolich testified Tuesday.

When he had cousins visiting from Croatia, Sokolich was given a short-notice tour of Ground Zero, escorted there by a high-ranking official at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, he said. That same official, it would turn out, was the man who plotted the lane closures: David Wildstein, a childhood classmate of Christie.

“It was odd to me,” Sokolich said of what Wildstein told him. “‘So you’re the guy we have to be nice to.’ Said it several times. ‘I’ve got to be nice to you, I’m told.’ I remember because he said it multiple times within my initial minute of meeting him.”

Wildstein has already pleaded guilty to his role in the bridge incident and will be the star witness for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, which is prosecuting the case. He will testify against Bill Baroni, the former deputy executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and Bridget Anne Kelly, Christie’s former deputy chief of staff. Both were indicted last May on charges of conspiracy, fraud and civil rights violations.

By fall of 2012, Sokolich’s regular conversations with Mowers had started to turn toward Christie’s 2013 reelection campaign. Over and over again, Sokolich said, Mowers would raise the names of other Democrats who had publicly supported Christie’s bid for a second term. The township council in Teaneck had done it — maybe he’d think about it, too? Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo was in — maybe Sokolich, too?

“Mayor, what are your thoughts? Would you consider something like that?” Sokolich said Mowers would ask.

“It wasn’t a comfortable place for me to be,” said Sokolich, who had endorsed Christie policies but never the man himself. “I was at times supportive of the governor, though I am the Democratic mayor in a predominately Democratic town. And it wasn’t something I felt I would, ultimately, be able to do. So I was uncomfortable with the conversations when we had them.”

Even so, the mayor said the inquiries were gentle — never a “direct” question about whether he’d endorse or not. At least not until the summer of 2013, months before the election.

That’s when the two met at a restaurant called In Napoli in Fort Lee and Mowers asked for a clear answer. Sokolich said he told him he couldn’t do it, and went on at length about why, fearing he might upset the governor’s office.

“I gave him multiple reasons, because I wanted to, as gently as possible, say ‘no’ to his request,” Sokolich said.

He said he didn’t want to anger the Democrats on the local City Council, didn’t want to anger a political mentor who’d balked at the idea of backing Christie and he didn’t want to upset Lou Stellato, the powerful chairman of the Democratic party in Bergen County.

“I did not want to alienate them,” Sokolich said. “They’re all Democratic party loyalists.”

When September rolled around, and the first day of school on the 9th, the traffic jam started. The lane closures went on for days, coming with no waring and no explanation, Sokolich and his police chief, Keith Bendul, testified on Tuesday.

Cones were moved to reduce the city’s three local access lanes to the George Washington Bridge to just one. The result was traffic that backed up for miles, snaking out onto side street after side street and well beyond the confines of their 2.5-square-mile town.

It was some of the most debilitating gridlock they had seen in Fort Lee, which plays hosts the world’s busiest bridge.

“I would say it’s the worst traffic we had to deal with outside of 9/11,” said Bendul, who has been with the department for 27 years.

When they searched for answers, though, the men found none.

The chief made calls to all his contacts in the police department at the Port Authority, which controls the bridge the access lanes. Eventually the bridge’s general manager, Robert Durando, agreed to meet him that morning at the municipal parking lot, nearby the Port Authority’s building. Bendul said the man told him not to “come in the building or onto Port Authority property.”

“I thought it was very weird,” he said. “I thought it was cloak and dagger.”

He told him he was worried about public safety, and didn’t understand what was going on. “I told him bluntly that if anybody dies, I’m going to tell those people to sue him and everybody at the Port Authority,” the chief testified.

Durando wouldn’t give him a straight answer, and eventually told him to reach out to Baroni for answers about what was happening, Bendul said.

“He was very nervous. Seemed afraid,” Bendul said. “He told me that if anybody asked if this meeting occurred that he would deny it.”

When Sokolich went to Baroni, he got no response. The mayor said that was despite a good relationship with him that traced back to the beginning of his tenure at the Port, where he was the highest ranking New Jersey official.

He called and texted. He left multiple voicemails. No word from Baroni, the mayor said.

Prosecutors played two voicemails and showed some of the text messages to the jury. It wasn’t long before the mayor thought someone was trying to punish him.

“We’re in total gridlock,” Sokolich said in one voicemail left for Baroni. “I’m just trying to figure out who’s mad at me.”

The mayor will take the witness stand again on Tuesday, followed by Port Authority Executive Director Patrick Foye, an appointee of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo who ended the lane closures when he learned of them.

Christie, who is currently a top adviser to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, has denied any knowledge or involvement in the lane-closing incident. But Wildstein’s attorney says there is evidence to prove the governor knew about the plot when it was occurring, and prosecutors on Monday endorsed that theory, saying the governor was told of the traffic gridlock and the mayor’s unanswered complaints on the third day of the lane closings.

The trial is expected to last six weeks. Both defendants plan to testify.