Here is a link to the complete text of the US Supreme Court's decision in the Bridgegate case, 18-1959. Kelly vs United States, in which the Court threw out the Bridgegate convictions of Kelly and Baroni.
And here are some some excerpts from the Court's UNANIMOUS decision:
As we explain below, the Government could not have proved—on either of its theories, though for different reasons—that Baroni’s and Kelly’s scheme was “directed at the [Port Authority’s] property.” Brief for United States 44. Baroni and Kelly indeed “plotted to reduce [Fort Lee’s] lanes.” Id., at 34. But that realignment was a quintessential exercise of regulatory power. And this Court has already held that a scheme to alter such a regulatory choice is not one to appropriate the government’s property. See Cleveland, 531 U. S., at 23. By contrast, a scheme to usurp a public employee’s paid time is one to take the government’s property. But Baroni’s and Kelly’s plan never had that as an object. The use of Port Authority employees was incidental to—the mere cost of implementing— the sought-after regulation of the Bridge’s toll lanes. . . .
Contrary to the Government’s view, the two defendants did not “commandeer” the Bridge’s access lanes (supposing that word bears its normal meaning). They (of course) did not walk away with the lanes; nor did they take the lanes from the Government by converting them to a non-public use. Rather, Baroni and Kelly regulated use of the lanes, as officials responsible for roadways so often do—allocating lanes as between different groups of drivers. To borrow Cleveland’s words, Baroni and Kelly exercised the regulatory rights of “allocation, exclusion, and control”—deciding that drivers from Fort Lee should get two fewer lanes while drivers from nearby highways should get two more. They did so, according to all the Government’s evidence, for bad reasons; and they did so by resorting to lies. But still, what they did was alter a regulatory decision about the toll plaza’s use—in effect, about which drivers had a “license” to use which lanes. And under Cleveland, that run-of-themine exercise of regulatory power cannot count as the taking of property. A government’s Federal prosecutors may not use property fraud statutes to “set[] standards of disclosure and good government for local and state officials.” McNally, 483 U. S., at 360; see supra, at 7. Much of governance involves (as it did here) regulatory choice. If U. S. Attorneys could prosecute as property fraud every lie a state or local official tells in making such a decision, the result would be—as Cleveland recognized—“a sweeping expansion of federal criminal jurisdiction.” 531 U. S., at 24. And if those prosecutors could end-run Cleveland just by pointing to the regulation’s incidental costs, the same ballooning of federal power would follow. In effect, the Federal Government could use the criminal law to enforce (its view of ) integrity in broad swaths of state and local policymaking. The property fraud statutes do not countenance that outcome. They do not “proscribe[] schemes to defraud citizens of their intangible rights to honest and impartial government.” McNally, 483 U. S., at 355; see supra, at 7. They bar only schemes for obtaining property.
As Kelly’s own lawyer acknowledged, this case involves an “abuse of power.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 19. For no reason other than political payback, Baroni and Kelly used deception to reduce Fort Lee’s access lanes to the George Washington Bridge—and thereby jeopardized the safety of the town’s residents. But not every corrupt act by state or local officials is a federal crime. Because the scheme here did not aim to obtain money or property, Baroni and Kelly could not have violated the federal-program fraud or wire fraud laws. We therefore reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. It is so ordered.
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