William E. Baroni Jr. (born December 10, 1971) is an American Republican Party politician and law professor.
[1] He resigned from his position at the Port Authority on December 12, 2013, during the inquiry into the Fort Lee lane closure controversy.
[2] Baroni was convicted on seven counts of conspiracy and wire fraud in relation to his involvement in the closure[3] and sentenced to two years of imprisonment and 500 hours of community service,[4] later reduced to 18 months.
[7] Baroni became interested in politics as a teenager, working on the 1988 campaign of his hometown US representative, Christopher H. Smith (R), who was seeking re-election to his fourth term.
In 1999, Baroni made his first campaign for public office, losing a race for Hamilton Township council.
[8] In 2000, Baroni was one of a small group of New Jersey Republicans who supported John McCain for president over George W.
[10] In 2003, Baroni mounted an aggressive campaign for the General Assembly, knocking on over 10,000 doors to defeat the Democratic incumbent Gary Guear.
During the 2005 campaign, Democratic opponent Daniel R. Benson held an October press conference at the State House, intending to attack Baroni on property taxes.
Senator Robert Torricelli withdrew his candidacy for re-election five weeks before Election Day after the Senate admonished him on ethics charges, Baroni argued for the Republicans in the New Jersey Supreme Court against a last-minute switch of candidates to Frank Lautenberg.
[23] In 2002, Baroni became an adjunct professor at the Seton Hall University School of Law, where he taught classes on Professional Responsibility, voting rights, legislation, and campaign finance reform.
On December 12, 2013, Christie announced that Baroni had resigned as Deputy Executive Director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
That occurred after the scandal over lane closures at the George Washington Bridge, perhaps to punish Democratic Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich for not supporting Christie.
[30] He contested the District Attorney's decision not to release certain documents in the discovery process to mount his defense.
[32] On November 4, 2016, the jury in the Bridgegate trial returned guilty verdicts on all counts against Bill Baroni and co-defendant Bridget Anne Kelly.
[35][36][37] On November 27, 2018, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the majority of the convictions but overturned the determination that Kelly and Baroni had violated the civil rights of travelers and found there is no established civil right to interstate travel giving rise to a criminal conviction.
On May 7, 2020, the Supreme Court reversed the conviction and unanimously held in Kelly v. United States that the money or property element of the federal program fraud and wire fraud laws had not been met[39] stating: “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.