Bridget Anne Kelly, a former aide to then-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, took swipes at her ex-boss on Wednesday, saying the “truth will be inescapable,” after she was resentenced to 13 months in federal prison for the so-called Bridgegate scandal.
“The fact that I am here in place of others from the Christie administration and the governor himself does not prove my guilt. It only proves that justice is not blind,” she said in a statement outside a Newark courthouse.
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The date when Kelly must report to prison has not been set.
“Mr. Christie, you are a bully, and the days of you calling me a liar and destroying my life are over,” she said, reading from a prepared statement. “The truth will be heard, and for the former governor, that truth will be inescapable, regardless of lucrative television deals or even future campaigns. I plan to make sure of that.”
Christie’s former deputy chief of staff for legislative and intergovernmental affairs had originally been sentenced to 18 months on multiple federal charges. An appeals court tossed the civil rights convictions but left standing those for conspiracy and wire fraud, leading to Wednesday’s hearing, The New York Times reported.
Prosecutors accused Kelly of ordering the closure of lanes accessing the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee, New Jersey, to punish the city’s mayor for not supporting Christie’s reelection bid in 2013. The closures led to massive traffic jams. Bill Baroni, who oversaw the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, was also convicted in the scheme and was sentenced to 18 months, also after appeals.
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Kelly has insisted that she thought the lane closures were part of a traffic study and that Christie and others had ulterior motives that she didn’t know about.
“How did all these men escape justice?” she asked on Wednesday.
Christie, who was never charged in the scheme, has repeatedly denied having known that lane closures were being ordered.
“As I have said before, I had no knowledge of this scheme prior to or during these lane realignments, and had no role in authorizing them,” Christie said in a statement on Wednesday. “No credible evidence was ever presented to contradict that fact. Anything said to the contrary is simply untrue.”
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