The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday said it would hear an appeal from aides to former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie who were sentenced to prison in the political-retribution scandal known as Bridgegate.
A federal judge in April sentenced Bridget Anne Kelly, Christie's former deputy chief of staff, to 13 months in prison. Another Christie ally, Bill Baroni, was sentenced to 18 months incarceration in February.
Each was convicted by a jury in 2016 on charges that included conspiracy and fraud stemming from their role in a 2013 plot to cause days-long traffic jams near the George Washington Bridge in order to punish a local mayor for his refusal to endorse Christie's reelection bid.
Lawyers for Kelly say the fraud convictions were based on evidence that she concealed the political motives "for an otherwise legitimate official act."
"All that separates a routine decision by a public official from a federal felony," under a federal appeals court ruling in the case, "is a jury finding that her public policy justification for the decision was not really and truly her subjective reason for making it. There is no way that could possibly be the law," Kelly's attorneys wrote in a petition to the Supreme Court.
The court will consider the following question: "Does a public official 'defraud' the government of its property by advancing a 'public policy reason' for an official decision that is not her subjective 'real reason' for making the decision?"
