NEWARK, N.J. (CN) – A key player in New Jersey’s Bridgegate scandal who turned state’s evidence against two co-conspirators was sentenced to probation Wednesday by a federal judge.
David Wildstein, 55, pleaded guilty in 2015 to masterminding the shutdown of two lanes leading onto the George Washington Bridge — causing a massive traffic jam in the city of Fort Lee whose Democratic mayor refused to endorse the re-election of Gov. Chris Christie.
Republican Christie had appointed Wildstein to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the bistate agency that runs the heavily trafficked bridge connecting Fort Lee and Manhattan.
At a 11 a.m. sentencing hearing Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Susan Wigenton gave Wildstein three years of probation and 500 hours of community service.
Though the co-conspirators Wildstein testified against were given prison sentences, Wigenton highlighted that Wildstein is the only one who admitted guilt or worked with prosecutors, doing so even before a plea agreement.
She called Wildstein “the single most important witness” in the case, but added that what he did was “inexcusable.”
Addressing the court, Wildstein said he felt “tremendous guilt” for what he did, and that he “willingly drank the Kool-Aid” in Christie’s office that prioritized politics over all else.
In addition to offering an apology “to the people of the state of New Jersey for magnifying the stereotype of politics in the state,” Wildstein spoke of how it was “agonizing” to testify against fellow Christie appointees Bridget Kelly and Bill Baroni, having considered himself their friend.
“I have done the best I could to right this incredible wrong,” he said, later leaving the courthouse without answering any questions.
The Bridgegate scandal culminated in fall 2016 when Kelly and Baroni were convicted for their roles in the four-day shutdown.
Kelly, who served as Christie’s deputy chief of staff, received 18 months in prison. Baroni, who was sentenced to two years in prison, was Christie’s top appointee to the Port Authority. Both have appealed their sentences.
Though Wildstein's plea agreement outlined a 27-month prison sentence, prosecutors urged Wigenton in a letter Tuesday to sentence Wildstein only to probation, claiming that Widlstein had provided them with “timely, complete and truthful information and testimony.”
U.S. Attorney Lee Cortes also said in the brief that, “were it not for Wildstein’s decision to cooperate and disclose the true nature of the lane reductions, there likely would have been no prosecutions related to the Bridge Scheme.”
Christie has never been charged in the scheme, the so-called Bridge Scheme became one of the defining aspects of his second term as New Jersey governor.