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Bridgegate defendant Bill Baroni says Port Authority should pay his $4M legal bill

By

Nancy Solomon

Published Jun 1, 2023

Modified Jun 1, 2023

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Bill Baroni outside the Supreme Court on Tuesday.

 

Matt Katz / WNYC / Gothamist

By

Nancy Solomon

Published Jun 1, 2023

Modified Jun 1, 2023

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One of the defendants in the case stemming from the “Bridgegate” scandal is reupping his bid to get $4 million in legal fees paid for by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Bill Baroni, former deputy executive director of the Port Authority, sued his former employer two years ago seeking payment for his legal fees. He’s looking to amend the complaint, and his attorneys sent a letter to the federal court on Wednesday pointing out that his codefendant, Bridget Anne Kelly, got her own legal costs paid for by the state of New Jersey.

Separately, the state of New Jersey has paid approximately $25.9 million in Bridgegate-related legal costs so far, according to public record requests and information provided by the state attorney general's office.

The state of New Jersey’s $25.9M legal costs for Bridgegate

Baroni, David Wildstein and then-Port Authority Chairman David Samson were working for the agency in September 2013 when the Port Authority Police Department, at Wildstein’s request, blocked several lanes to the George Washington Bridge for four days, causing a massive traffic jam. Wildstein would later testify that the traffic jam was meant to punish the Fort Lee's Democratic mayor for not endorsing Republican Gov. Chris Christie for re-election.

He also testified that Christie knew about the scheme, but no charges were ever filed against the former governor, who has denied involvement.

Christie is expected to announce his second presidential campaign next week, nearly a decade after the most notorious scandal of his governorship.

Baroni and Kelly were tried and convicted of fraud in federal court, but the U.S. Supreme Court overturned those convictions in 2020.

“Not every corrupt act by state or local officials is a federal crime," Justice Elena Kagan wrote in the unanimous decision. "Because the scheme here did not aim to obtain money or property, Baroni and Kelly could not have violated the federal-program fraud or wire fraud laws.”

Wildstein, the third defendant, pleaded guilty and testified against Baroni and Kelly, but prosecutors agreed to vacate his conviction in 2020 after the ruling about Baroni and Kelly.

The state of New Jersey agreed in 2022 to pay $7.2 million for Kelly’s legal bills, because state law requires any government employee to be provided a defense if they are charged with work-related offenses and not convicted.

“Mr. Baroni’s legal team achieved the same defense result for him for a lower total cost, at only $4 million,” his lawyer, Michael A. Levy, wrote in a letter to the court. “We believe New Jersey’s agreement to pay Ms. Kelly’s legal fees here supports Mr. Baroni’s position that a public official who is wrongly prosecuted for non-criminal conduct is entitled to reimbursement of legal fees.”

In 2015, then-state Sen. Loretta Weinberg submitted a public records request for outside legal fees the Port Authority incurred related to Samson, Wildstein and Philip Kwon, an attorney for the Port Authority during Bridgegate. The records show the Port Authority paid a total of $567,489 in legal fees from the period between the lane closures and July 2015, though it’s unclear what proportion of those fees were related to Bridgegate.

The Port Authority paid $30,527 to attorney Alan Zegas, who worked for Wildstein during the scandal. But Wildstein said in an email Thursday those “invoices were unrelated to Bridgegate.”

In January of 2014, Wildstein’s attorney wrote to Port Authority officials trying to get them to reverse their refusal to pay his legal bills and indemnify him for any lawsuits that might be coming.

Samson, former chairman of the Port Authority, was investigated for his involvement in Bridgegate but would later only be charged with and convicted of bribery related to a shakedown of United Airlines and a special route to his vacation home in South Carolina.

This story has been updated to include a comment from David Wildstein saying fees the Port Authority paid to attorney Alan Zegas were unrelated to Wildstein’s role in Bridgegate, and clarifying it’s unclear what proportion of the $567,489 in fees disclosed through a public records request by then-Sen. Loretta Weinberg are related to Bridgegate.

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Politics

Nancy Solomon

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