The Supreme Court recently granted certiorari in a criminal case arising from a fraudulent scheme to cause massive gridlock at the George Washington Bridge in September 2013—otherwise known as the “Bridgegate” scandal. Bridget Anne Kelly, a staffer in then-Governor Chris Christie’s office, was convicted of wire fraud for her role in fabricating a fake traffic study and orchestrating lane reallocations as an act of political retaliation against a local mayor.

Affirming Kelly’s wire fraud conviction, the Third Circuit sustained the Government’s theory that Kelly and a fellow political operative fraudulently deprived the Port Authority of both physical property and intangible property, finding that the Port Authority has an “unquestionable” property interest in the Bridge’s traffic allocation and its public employee labor, and that the Port Authority has an intangible property interest in the public employees’ time and wages.
Continue Reading SCOTUS Considers Challenge to DOJ’s “Bridgegate” Theory