Christie ‘enforcer’ ignored missing child to punish mayor

By David Voreacos

Bloomberg

The self-professed architect of the George Washington Bridge lane closings in 2013 testified that he ignored reports of a missing child and a cardiac arrest during the traffic jams he helped create to punish a Democratic New Jersey mayor for not supporting Republican Gov. Chris Christie’s re-election.

David Wildstein, testifying Thursday at the trial of two Christie allies accused of conspiring to snarl traffic, said he got an e-mail relating concerns from a borough official in Fort Lee, New Jersey, saying that the gridlock impeded the search for the missing 4-year-old and the response to the cardiac arrest. A defense lawyer asked Wildstein what he thought about the e-mail, sent when the traffic jams began on the first day of school in September 2013.

“I unfortunately didn’t think about it as seriously as I ought to have,” Wildstein told federal court jurors on Thursday in Newark. “I was focused on the politics of this and not the other issues.” The child was eventually found; a 91-year-old woman died of a heart attack during the lane closings though it is not clear she is the person referenced in Wildstein’s e-mail.

Wildstein was questioned by an attorney for Bill Baroni, his former boss at the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, who is on trial with Bridget Anne Kelly, Christie’s former deputy chief of staff. The lawyer, Michael Baldassare, sought to show that Wildstein, who pleaded guilty to his role in the plot, callously orchestrated the plot to punish Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich, and changed his account over more than 20 debriefings to please prosecutors.

Baldassare asked Wildstein about discrepancies in his account of how Baroni and Wildstein described the traffic to Christie during a Sept. 11 memorial service that year. The lawyer said Wildstein had claimed in earlier debriefings with prosecutors that he had bragged to Christie at the World Trade Center as lane closings at the bridge choked traffic in Fort Lee, New Jersey. In testimony this week, Wildstein said Baroni actually did the bragging.

“Isn’t it correct that during multiple meetings with the government you made no mention at all of Mr. Baroni in connection with that 9/11 meeting?,” Baldassare asked Wildstein in his second day of cross-examination.

“No sir, I don’t recall that,” Wildstein said.

Baldassare jousted repeatedly with Wildstein about the Sept. 11 conversation and many other aspects of his testimony. Wildstein frequently said he didn’t recall what he said, asked Baldassare to repeat his question, or disagreed with the premise of a question.

Wildstein was questioned on his prior testimony that he has bragged about political dirty tricks, including his actions as a 21-year-old, when he stole the jacket of then U.S. Senate candidate Frank Lautenberg before a debate with a Republican opponent. Baldassare asked if he intended to brag in the same way about ordering the movement of traffic cones at the bridge to close local access lanes and create gridlock.

“Sir, I never had an intention of bragging about the cones,” Wildstein said.

Wildstein, who has been portrayed as Christie’s “enforcer” at the Port Authority, testified that he came up with the idea of closing the lanes to punish the mayor and inspected the gridlock on the first day it occurred.