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Page Number: 6.0

4 

KELLY v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

phone conversation, Kelly confirmed to Wildstein that she
wanted to “creat[e] a traffic jam that would punish” Mayor 
Sokolich and “send him a message.”  Id., at 254 (Wildstein
testimony).  And after Wildstein relayed those communica-
tions, Baroni gave the needed sign-off. 

To complete the scheme, Wildstein then devised “a cover
story”—that the lane change was part of a traffic study, in-
tended to assess whether to retain the dedicated Fort Lee 
lanes  in  the  future.  Id.,  at  264.    Wildstein,  Baroni,  and 
Kelly  all  agreed  to  use  that  “public  policy”  justification
when speaking with the media, local officials, and the Port 
Authority’s own employees.  Id., at 265.  And to give their 
story credibility, Wildstein in fact told the Port Authority’s
engineers to collect “some numbers on how[ ] far back  the 
traffic was delayed.”  Id., at 305.  That inquiry bore little
resemblance  to  the  Port  Authority’s  usual  traffic  studies. 
According  to  one  engineer’s  trial  testimony,  the  Port  Au-
thority never closes lanes to study traffic patterns, because 
“computer-generated  model[ing]”  can  itself  predict  the  ef-
fect of such actions.  Id., at 484 (testimony of Umang Patel); 
see  id.,  at  473–474  (similar  testimony  of  Victor  Chung). 
And  the  information  that  the  Port  Authority’s  engineers
collected on this singular occasion was mostly “not useful”
and “discarded.”  Id., at 484–485 (Patel testimony).  Nor did 
Wildstein  or  Baroni  show  any  interest  in  the  data.    They
never  asked  to  review  what  the  engineers  had  found;  in-
deed, they learned of the results only weeks later, after a 
journalist  filed  a  public-records  request.    So  although  the 
engineers  spent  valuable  time  assessing  the  lane  change, 
their work was to no practical effect.

Baroni, Wildstein, and Kelly also agreed to incur another
cost—for  extra  toll  collectors—in  pursuit  of  their  object.
Wildstein’s initial thought was to eliminate all three dedi-
cated lanes by not laying down any traffic cones, thus turn-
ing the whole toll plaza into a free-for-all.  But the Port Au-
thority’s  chief  engineer  told  him  that  without  the  cones