Tearful, troubled ex-NBA star Jayson Williams was sentenced today to five years in prison for accidentally killing a limo driver with a shotgun in his New Jersey mansion, and for then clumsily trying to cover up the crime.
“I’m terribly sorry,” Williams, 41, said directly to the family of the man he killed, Costas “Gus” Christofi.
“I’m not a bad man, but I acted badly on Feb. 14” 2002, the former New Jersey Nets player said, referring to the day of the shooting. “I will try to work to make a positive contribution, that’s who I am and what I want my daughters to be proud of.”
Williams, who will be eligible for parole after just 18 months, also apologized to his family, saying, “Please forgive me for the pain I caused you. You deserve a better father, son, brother than I’ve been.”
“To my friends in the community, church, NBA, I regret having let you down,” said Williams, whose longstanding abuse of alcohol, which included downing liquor shots on the night of Christofi’s death, were repeatedly mentioned during the sentencing hearing in a Somerville, NJ, courtroom.
His sentence, which was expected under a plea deal Williams set in motion with his guilty plea last month, drew the ire of Christofi’s sister, Andrea Adams, who had a letter that was read aloud by a prosecutor.
“I do not feel that the punishment fits the crime. He’ll be eligible for parole in 18 short months,” Adams’ letter said.
“It’s been 8 years” since Christofi’s death, she noted. “We’ve watched him prance around, partying and act like nothing has happened.”
“Jayson Williams showed no remorse.”
Williams still faces a pending DWI case in New York, stemming from an incident in Manhattan last month when he drove his car at high speed into a tree after cutting across several lanes of traffic while allegedly drunk.
Christofi, a recovering drug addict who had by all accounts turned his own troubled life around in recent years, was hired for the night Feb. 13, 2002, by Williams to drive guests in a van to a Harlem Globetrotter game at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania.
After the game, Williams invited several Globetrotters and other guest to a restaurant in New Jersey, where Williams boozed and teased Christofi in a mean-spirited manner.
The group then went to Williams’ home, where he gave them a tour that ended in his bedroom.
There, Williams pulled out a Browning under-over shotgun, briefly snapped its breech open, and then snapped it shut, causing the weapon to fire a single shell into Christofi’s chest, fatally injuring him.
Williams then desperately tried to scrub the scene of evidence that he had been the one to shoot Christofi, stripping off his own clothes and then jumping into a pool to wash off the driver’s blood, and wiping down the shotgun’s stock and putting Christofi’s lifeless hands against it to make it seem like the fatal wound was self-inflicted.
Williams, who had remained free on bond for 8 years, was acquitted of aggravated manslaughter during a 2004 trial, but convicted of several charges related to the cover-up.
The jury in that trial deadlocked on the count of reckless manslaughter, setting the stage for a re-trial that was delayed for six years by appeals, turmoil in the Hunterdon County Prosecutor’s office, and the disclosure of the fact that a member of the prosecution’s investigation team had used a racist slur to refer to Williams, whose dad was black.
In the past year, Williams’ wife, Tanya, sued him for divorce, accusing him on physical and emotional abuse, and Williams was hospitalized after a suicidal outburst in a Manhattan hotel room that ended with him being Tasered by police.
Williams father, E.J., died in November, after a long illness.