Shortly after the verdict, both defendants professed their innocence and promised appeals. Christie vowed to fight the trial’s depiction of him as an ambitious tyrant who laughed while Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich pleaded for help and who was alerted to the plot by senior aides.

Related:  Tears, doubts, heated debate in Bridgegate jury room

“I will set the record straight in the coming days regarding the lies that were told by the media and in the courtroom,” Christie said in a statement in which he reiterated he “had no knowledge prior to or during these lane realignments, and had no role in authorizing them.”

From the beginning:  Click here to read all of The Record's Bridgegate coverage

Photos:  Baroni, Kelly convicted in Bridgegate trial

Bill Baroni, the former deputy executive director of the Port Authority, and Bridget Anne Kelly, Christie’s former deputy chief of staff, told jurors that they were swindled into the lane-closing scheme by David Wildstein, who was Baroni’s deputy at the agency and grew up with Christie in Livingston. Wildstein has pleaded guilty and cooperated with prosecutors, admitting that it was his idea to reduce access lanes at the world’s busiest bridge from three to one to send a message to Sokolich so he would “fully understand that life would be more difficult for him in the second Christie term than it had been in the first.”

Stile:   No more smiles for Christie or his convicted cronies

And it was Kelly who ordered the plot to begin with her infamous “time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee” email.

The jury, deliberating since Monday, found both Baroni and Kelly guilty of seven charges of conspiracy, wire fraud and civil rights violations after six weeks of testimony from about 35 witnesses and hundreds of exhibits. Kelly sobbed as the verdict was read around 11:30 a.m.; Baroni showed little emotion. He gave her a long hug afterward, then left the courthouse the same way he arrived each morning of the trial: smiling.

Mike Kelly:  If there is a victim in Bridgegate, it's Fort Lee Mayor Sokolich

“I am innocent of these charges,” Baroni said in a news conference. “And I am very, very looking forward to this appeal.”

Baroni’s attorney, Michael Baldassare, and Kelly’s attorney, Michael Critchley, said they would appeal but did not discuss possible reasons. They had sought a mistrial earlier in the week after Judge Susan D. Wigenton instructed the jury to disregard the motive — punishing Sokolich — when considering the conspiracy charges. Her instruction “eviscerated” their defense, they said, and effectively lowered the bar for conviction.

Related:   Bridgegate testimony offers a peek inside the IGA, Trenton’s ‘political shop’

Sentencing of Baroni and Kelly is scheduled for Feb. 21.

Road Warrior column from Sept. 13, 2013:   Closed tollbooths a commuting disaster

‘Should be ashamed’

Throughout the trial and again on Friday, prosecutors faced questions about why they had not charged others in the case and, with so much damning testimony against Christie, why the governor himself was not on trial. The one element of the case that attorneys on both sides could agree on was that Christie knew of the lane closures as they happened, and Baldassare lambasted the prosecution for not charging “powerful people.”

Jan. 8, 2014:   Christie stuck in a jam over GWB lane closings

“The U.S. Attorney’s Office should be ashamed of this case,” Baldassare said, holding up a copy of the indictment, which repeatedly refers to the punishment of the mayor. “They said that my client pursued a punitive objective against Mayor Sokolich. When it came time at trial to put up on those allegations, they shut up.”

But U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman, in response to questions outside the courthouse, said he only charged people for whom the office had “evidence beyond a reasonable doubt” to convict. And while Sokolich’s punishment was the cornerstone of the case against Baroni and Kelly, it was not the actual crime “and I expect that we will be in a very good position to defend these convictions on appeal,” he said.

From May 1, 2015:   David Wildstein turns on his former allies in GWB scandal

With Friday’s verdict, Fishman has now convicted or negotiated a guilty plea agreement with four associates of his predecessor — Christie, who made his name as New Jersey’s corruption-busting U.S. attorney. Besides Baroni, Kelly and Wildstein, Christie’s mentor, former Port Authority chairman David Samson, has pleaded guilty to bribery in a case stemming from the lane-closure investigation.

Christie built his public persona as a truth-teller working for the interests of the common man, but testimony in the trial portrayed him as self-serving and with eyes on the White House. And it was a culture of relentless ambition in and around the governor’s office — or “Christie world,” as Kelly put it.

Kelly and her predecessor in the governor’s office, Bill Stepien, who has not been charged, led a department called Intergovernmental Affairs that started plotting Christie’s reelection in 2011, a year after he was sworn in. Workers kept detailed spreadsheets of Democratic mayors who might be open to endorsing Christie in pursuit of a landslide win that would cement his status as the 2016 front-runner for the Republican nomination. They doled out breakfasts with him at the governor’s mansion in Princeton, luxury box tickets to sports games, steel from the original World Trade Center, and tours guided by Baroni and Wildstein at the new tower in Manhattan.

GWB timeline:   What happened in public and what was said in private

The blandishments were countered with punishments. Kelly testified of being ordered to cancel a series of meetings with newly sworn-in Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, who, like Sokolich, declined to endorse Christie, because, the governor told her, “No one’s entitled to a [expletive] meeting.”

Kelly and Baroni, both 44, described a profane and volatile governor who, if he wasn’t bawling them out, was ordering them to do so to people he perceived as disloyal or his opponents.

Wildstein, 55, was the admitted architect of the lane closures, testifying that he came to see the access lanes in Fort Lee as leverage against Sokolich if necessary.

On Sept. 11, 2013, the third day of the lane closures, Wildstein said, Baroni told Christie of the traffic at the bridge and the repeated calls for help from Sokolich. And when Baroni told Christie that Wildstein was monitoring the traffic, Christie said, “I’m sure Mr. Edge wouldn’t do anything political,” said Wildstein, who once ran a political blog under the pseudonym Wally Edge. “And he laughed.”

Christie said days before the trial started that it “will just confirm” that he had no knowledge or role in the traffic plot, but Wildstein and other witnesses, including Kelly, Baroni and Mike DuHaime, Christie’s top political strategist, testified that he was aware.

Baroni said the closures were conducted as part of a traffic study to see if it was possible to ease congestion for motorists heading east on Route 95 by giving the Fort Lee lanes to the mainline traffic. He said the traffic problems were exacerbated by poor communication on the part of the Port Authority and pledged that the agency would do better.

At trial, several Port Authority traffic experts said that the September 2013 closures bore no resemblance to the way the agency usually conducts traffic studies.

Baroni and Wildstein were forced to resign in December 2013. Kelly was fired by Christie in January 2014, after the “traffic problems” email and others were published by The Record.

“On Jan. 9, 2014, I apologized to the people for the conduct exhibited by some members of my administration who showed a lack of respect for the appropriate role of government and for the people we serve. Those people were terminated by me and today, the jury affirms that decision by also holding them responsible for their own conduct,” Christie said in his statement.

Christie’s popularity in New Jersey dropped after the disclosure and is now at a record low. He did enter the 2016 race for president, but by then was bruised by the scandal and dropped out of the primary following a sixth-place finish in the first primary, in New Hampshire. He was to campaign there and in Pennsylvania today for the Republican nominee for president, Donald Trump, but the campaign did not respond to inquiries for details Friday and Christie’s public schedule indicated he would remain in New Jersey.

Lawmakers react

The verdict drew harsh reaction from Democrats in the state Legislature. Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto, D-Hudson, called it “a grim and sad day for New Jersey.”

“The testimony and evidence presented during this trial raised serious questions about the behavior of the executive branch under this administration. New Jersey requires an executive branch focused on policy, not bullying and crass politics,” he said.

Prieto said he would confer with legislative leaders about “appropriate” action going forward. The two former co-chairmen of the joint committee that investigated the lane closures, Assemblyman John Wisniewski and Sen. Loretta Weinberg, have indicated a desire to reassemble and search for more answers based on testimony in the trial that they say was withheld from legislators.

“I don’t care if he knew about it before, during or after,” said Weinberg, D-Teaneck. “He set the stage. And other people unfortunately got suckered in.”

Kelly and Baroni now face years in prison, but Fishman said he would “absolutely” agree with them remaining free on bail pending an appeal.

Sokolich, the target of the traffic jams, had mixed emotions following the verdict.

“I don’t have a feeling of joy because of the demise of two individuals,” he said, adding that “any sympathy I have” is “overwhelmed” by his memories of the traffic jams in his town and his inability to summon help in numerous telephone calls to officials at the Port Authority and in Trenton.

Staff Writers Paul Berger and Mike Kelly contributed to this article. Email: racioppi@northjersey.com