Fraud Offenses/Wire Fraud – There was insufficient evidence supporting the conviction for wire fraud where the defendants’ scheme did not seek to obtain money or property.
The Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion reversing convictions the feds obtained as a result of the infamous “Bridgegate Scandal” in New Jersey. In 2013, members of Republican Governor Christie’s administration exacted political retribution against an unsupportive Democratic mayor by reducing the availability of lanes on the George Washington Bridge for the mayor’s commuters. The officials behind the lane closures at the Port Authority falsely claimed that the closures were part of a traffic study. Based in part on those false statements, the officials were convicted of wire fraud on a federally funded program (the Port Authority), and the Third Circuit affirmed.
The Supreme Court reversed their convictions, holding that the scheme here “did not aim to obtain money or property” and therefore “could not have violated the federal-program fraud or wire fraud laws.” Writing for the majority, Justice Kagan wrote that these statutes, though aimed at protecting the government from fraud, do not “set standards of disclosure and good government for local and state officials” and added that “not every corrupt act by state or local officials is a federal crime.”
The Court concluded that, while perhaps motivated by improper reasons, the “realignment of the access lanes was an exercise of regulatory power” and that “such a regulatory choice is not one to take the government’s property.”
On certiorari from the Third Circuit
Opinion by Kagan, joined by a unanimous Court
Click here to read the opinion.