An ex-Teaneck firefighter with a law degree decided that if the feds weren’t going to take Chris Christie to court over Bridgegate — he’d do it himself.
And on Thursday, a Hackensack municipal judge allowed his complaint to proceed — meaning the New Jersey governor could face criminal charges over the four-day closure of lanes feeding the George Washington Bridge from Fort Lee in 2013.
Prompting applause from a courtroom full of low-level criminal defendants, Judge Roy McGeady approved the citizen’s summons filed two weeks ago by William Brennan.
The gadfly’s efforts were sparked by recent trial testimony, in which the star prosecution witness told Newark federal jurors that Christie knew about the politically-vindictive lane closings and did nothing to stop them.
The feds declined to prosecute Christie and instead put two of his former cronies on trial — ex-Port Authority exec Bill Baroni and ex-Christie deputy Bridget Anne Kelly. Prosecutors, as well as both defense attorneys, have made a point of showing at trial that Christie approved of the closures.
Brennan alleges that Christie’s failure to end the closures constitutes second-degree official misconduct, a charge punishable by five to 10 years in prison.
Thursday’s ruling now forwards Brennan’s summons — which calls Bridgegate an “intentional evil minded act” — to Bergen County Prosecutor Gurbir S. Grewal, who will decide whether to charge the governor.
But Grewal is a Christie appointee, and may wind up recusing himself in favor of an independent prosecutor.
“There’s something wrong with a government that turns its power against its citizens,” Brennan told The Post, explaining the summons he originally filed in a Fort Lee municipal court.
Christie spokesman Brian Murray dismissed the complaint and the ruling as “dishonorable” and “filed by a known serial complainant and political activist.”
Meanwhile, in the federal trial, the government rested its case after 15 days and 18 witnesses.
The government’s final witness Thursday was FBI agent Michelle Pickels, who testified that she was unable to recover some of Kelly’s emails, including the infamous “time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee,” from Kelly’s Yahoo account, suggesting they were deleted.
Baroni then began presenting his defense.
His first witness was Christie’s former general counsel Charlie McKenna, who doubled down on the notion that he believed the lane closures were part of a traffic study until emails suggesting otherwise emerged in Jan. 2014.
McKenna claimed he didn’t find it odd that New Jersey residents were kept in the dark about the lane closures, which slowed emergency vehicles in Fort Lee, because it was all done for the sake of science.
“It would strike me from a common sense standpoint that if you gave notice to people that you are going to shift lanes they would act differently, and that would skew the results,” McKenna said.
McKenna was called to the stand because he participated in a conference call with Baroni in preparation for Baroni’s Nov. 2013 testimony before a NJ legislative committee about the lane closures, which were drawing scrutiny.
McKenna said that throughout the 10-minute call, Baroni referred to the closures as part of a traffic study — a since-debunked cover story.
When asked whether the governor ever asked him to look into allegations surrounding the lane closures, he said yes.
“The governor at one point asked me, ‘What’s going on with this situation,’” McKenna. “I reported back to him that they were doing a traffic study and that I talked to Bill Baroni.”
He confirmed that he told Bridgegate mastermind David Wildstein that he was still a “part of the team” after he fired him in Dec. 2013 because he still believed it was all a traffic study gone awry.
“He was afraid he was going to be ostracized from the Christie administration. I said this is a bad situation. You are going to have to resign but you are still on the team.”
“I meant the bigger Christie team. The governor wasn’t upset with him — the people around the governor were,” he said.
“I believed it was a traffic study so there’s nothing nefarious about a traffic study,” McKenna said when asked why he didn’t question Wildstein when he fired them in December 2013 over the lane closures.
Asked outside of court whether his job as a public official was to ensure residents’ safety or treat them as lab rats, McKenna said he was instructed by the judge not to comment.
McKenna’s testimony continues Friday, followed by a string of Baroni character witnesses, including Jose Rivera, a traffic engineer for the Port Authority.