Defense attorneys claim David Wildstein walked away with the hard drive of Bill Baroni and delivered it to prosecutors before the former deputy executive director of the Port Authority was indicted. At the same time, they asked the court to move the trial of Baroni and Bridget Anne Kelly, the two former allies of Gov. Chris Christie facing trial next year, to be moved out of state.
NEWARK -- Even before he resigned from the Port Authority as the heat over the scandal involving the lane shutdowns at the George Washington Bridge grew, David Wildstein knew he was facing bigger problems.
So he allegedly stole the computer hard drive of Port Authority Deputy Executive Director Bill Baroni and later handed it over to federal prosecutors -- who subsequently indicted Baroni in the high-profile political corruption scheme that has become known as Bridgegate.
Those were among the allegations in overnight court filings by defense attorneys attacking the mountain of evidence the government says it has against Baroni and Bridget Anne Kelly, the two former allies of Gov. Chris Christie facing trial next year for their alleged role in the lane shutdowns.
Baroni's attorney also asked the court to move the trial out of state, claiming the former Port Authority executive and Republican state senator could not get an impartial jury in New Jersey.
"The media coverage in this case has not tapered off and even the most mundane machinations for the case are widely reported on by news outlets throughout the state," said Michael Baldassare of Newark in his filing. "At each court proceeding in this case, throngs of reporters were present outside the courthouse and were in attendance in the courtroom."
MORE: Read the defense motions
Baroni, a Christie appointee who served as deputy executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, along with Kelly, a former deputy chief of staff to the governor, were indicted May 1 in connection with the abrupt shutdown of local access lanes at the George Washington Bridge in September 2013. They were charged with conspiring to tie up traffic in Fort Lee as political payback after Mayor Mark Sokolich of Fort Lee declined to back Christie in his 2013 re-election bid.
A CAMPAIGN DISTRACTION
The defense motions came, coincidentally, on the night of the latest Republican presidential debate, where Christie, who is seeking the GOP nomination, is still trying to convince voters that the Bridgegate scandal is behind him.
Christie, who first made light of the lane closures when they occurred, has since said he had nothing to do with the lane closures and fired Kelly after she was first implicated in January 2014.
The governor has not been charged with any wrongdoing, nor has his former campaign manager, Bill Stepien, whose name surfaced during the investigation.
Wildstein, a former political blogger and high-level Port Authority executive hired by Baroni to a sweetheart $150,020-a-year patronage position with no job description, has already pleaded guilty to his role in the scheme and has implicated both Baroni and Kelly. They have each entered not-guilty pleas and have labeled him a liar.
RELATED: Who is David Wildstein?
In the defense motions, Baldassare said Wildstein stole Baroni's computer hard drive containing thousands of documents when he walked out of the Port Authority in December 2013, while leaving much of his personal belongings behind.
The drive had been removed from Baroni's office PC because of problems he had reported with his computer, the filing said. But the two men, who worked together, agreed that because there was potentially sensitive information on the drive, it should not be left available to be accessed by others, and that Wildstein would hold it for safekeeping. Instead, he allegedly walked out the door with it, said Baldassare.
"As early as September 18, 2013, a few days after the final day of the lane closures, he knew his job was in jeopardy. On that date, he said, 'I had empty boxes ready to take to work today, just in case,'" Baldassare wrote. "When Wildstein left the Port Authority, he presumably used one of the boxes to hide the hard drive. More importantly, the discovery reveals what Wildstein did not use the boxes for: personal items, family photos and rare books, all of which were left behind and are now in the government's possession."
Baldassare said while the government claims Wildstein never accessed the hard drive after he stole it, federal prosecutors have produced no evidence to demonstrate he did not tamper with the hard drive during his possession of it. At present, he said there are approximately 87,000 documents on the stolen hard drive.
He said the government still has the drive and asked the court to order the U.S. Attorney's office to produce all documents related to its analyses of the computer, as well as the grand jury testimony and interview notes regarding it.
An attorney for Wildstein did not respond to requests for comment. The U.S. Attorney's office will not be answering the filings until Nov. 24.
FIRST LOOK
In the briefs, which offered a first look at how the defense intends to challenge the government's case, the defense attorneys complained the government failed to produce "critical facts essential to their ability to prepare for trial."
Prosecutors say they have amassed more than 1.5 million pages of documents in the case, including computer data, recordings, telephone records, emails, texts, financial records, materials obtained through search warrants, as well as the affidavits in support of those search warrants, after a nearly two-year investigation.
Michael Critchley, who represents Kelly, said the documents produced by the government for examination by the defense was essentially impossible to review because it was not electronically searchable, while thousands of other pages were redacted. The motion sought thousands of documents that the governor's office has claimed as privileged, including emails sent during the closures between Christie's then-press secretary and Wildstein. Some of those came from Christie on his personal email, and were redacted because the information was reportedly related to campaign strategy.
"The indictment fails to provide Ms. Kelly with the most basic information needed to conduct an adequate pre-trial investigation," said Critchley.
Baldassare said the government was still producing documents the defense has yet to review for trial, including a 13 page single- spaced letter sent on Tuesday night.
"It is unclear why, seven months after Mr. Baroni was indicted, the government is still organizing discovery and producing it to him," wrote Baldassare in his brief. "That is particularly troublesome given that the government had an 18-month investigation during which this could have been accomplished."
He also complained that the government also placed the identities of the unnamed "conspirators" directly at issue in the case and asked that the court to order the names be released.
"The participation of those people is alleged in every single count," he wrote, arguing for disclosure of just who is cooperating. "There are no allegations of violence or the use of weapons. Neither Mr. Baroni nor Ms. Kelly has a criminal record. This is a white-collar/political corruption case. No one is in danger."
Among those unnamed co-conspirators in the indictment, presumably, is Wildstein.
THE SHUTDOWN
Prosecutors have charged that Baroni plotted with Wildstein and Kelly to concoct a story of a phony traffic study at the George Washington Bridge to hide the real motive for the lane closures the first week of September 2013.
The lane shutdown plan, which deliberately narrowed the traffic patterns on approaches from two local Fort Lee streets and cut the number of tollbooths dedicated to local traffic on the span, paralyzed the Bergen County community for days, as cars, trucks and buses backed up into local streets, with the gridlock delaying school children, commuters and ambulances.
Documents released by a state legislative committee investigating the shutdowns before the indictments were handed down revealed that the scheme was launched after Kelly learned that Sokolich was not going to endorse Christie, as the campaign had expected.
"Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee, " she told Wildstein in a now infamous e-mail some have labeled the smoking gun in the case, sent on Aug. 13--four weeks before the shutdown.
"Got it, " he replied.
On Friday, Sept. 6, 2013, Wildstein ordered the bridge's general manager to carry out the shutdowns, and he e-mailed Kelly the next day. "I will call you Monday to let you know how Fort Lee goes," he wrote in the e-mail.
"Great," she responded.
Prosecutors say they deliberately chose not to execute the plan during mid-August, which is typically a light traffic month, and instead until the first day of school in Fort Lee to "ratchet up the injury" to the town and its mayor.
Baroni's attorney, though, said the indictment mischaracterized the reasons for the cancellation of a meeting with Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, which prosecutors said was scratched after the Christie campaign learned that the mayor was not going to endorse the governor for re-election.
"Gov. Christie told the government that he did not want the Fulop meetings to take place because it might strain the governor's relationship with Sen. President Steve Sweeney," Baldassare wrote. "The decision to cancel meetings to maintain political relationships is not wrong, let alone a federal crime."
The long-delayed trial, which has been repeatedly rescheduled over requests by defense attorneys for more time to review the evidence, is now set for April.
U.S. District Judge Susan D. Wigenton, who will preside over the trial, issued the latest order for a postponement on Oct. 30, based on a request by the defendants' lawyers for more time to review documents. The request was unopposed by the U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman.
Ted Sherman may be reached at tsherman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TedShermanSL. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
