Outcome at a glance
The Supreme Court unanimously reversed the judgment affirming the Bridgegate fraud convictions. The lane-reallocation scheme did not aim to obtain money or property as the charged statutes required. [1]
Allegations & issues
Bridget Anne Kelly and William Baroni were prosecuted over the politically motivated reduction of bridge-access lanes used by Fort Lee commuters, disguised as a traffic study. [1, pp. 1–5]
Key rulings & findings
Reallocating bridge lanes was an exercise of regulatory power. Employee time and labour used to implement the scheme were incidental costs, rather than the object of the fraud. [1, pp. 6–13]
Admissions
The defendants challenged convictions after trial. This was not a negotiated resolution. [1]
Disposition
Third Circuit judgment reversed and case remanded. [1, p. 13]
Penalties, damages & redress
The Supreme Court reversed the judgment sustaining the convictions and did not impose a replacement sentence. [1]
Restrictions & obligations
The appeal concerned federal-program fraud and wire fraud, not occupational restrictions. [1]
Why the bridge lanes did not supply the property element
The prosecution argued that taking control of the lanes amounted to obtaining the Port Authority’s property. The Court distinguished physical ownership from the authority to decide which drivers could use particular lanes. The scheme changed a regulatory allocation; it did not take the bridge for the defendants’ use as property. [1, pp. 7–9]
The decision did not depend on accepting the traffic-study explanation. It proceeded on the political and deceptive nature of the scheme while asking whether the statutory ingredients of the charged offences were present. [1, pp. 1–6]
Implementation costs were not enough
The government also relied on wages paid to traffic engineers and an additional toll collector. Employee labour can be property, but the Court required obtaining that property to be an object of the fraud. Here those services were a byproduct of carrying out the lane change. [1, pp. 9–13]
That distinction explains the outcome: the federal fraud statutes considered did not criminalise every dishonest use of state or local power. The reversal addressed the charges and facts before the Court, rather than deciding that political retaliation was acceptable or immune from every other legal response. [1, pp. 6–13]
THE UNDERLYING RECORD
Primary sources
Read the full documents for their precise wording and context. Regulator summaries are identified separately from court records.
Court record · supremecourt.gov01 · Supreme Court · Opinion, 7 May 2020 ↗