For the second time in five months, the lead prosecutor in the Jayson Williams manslaughter re-trial is off the case.
Katharine Errickson yesterday was fired from the Hunterdon County [NJ] Prosecutor’s Office, sources told The Post.
Last summer, prosecutor Steven Lember, who handled Williams’ first trial with Errickson’s assistance in 2004, quit after a disagreement with his boss, County Prosecutor J. Patrick Barnes.
The Post revealed last month that Barnes only recently told Williams’ lawyers that his office for five years kept secret the fact that an investigator in the case used a racial epithet to refer to the black former hoops star.
A judge soon after ordered prosecutors to turn over details about the slur, the identity of who made it, and how a probe into the issue was handled at the time.
Barnes’ office last week appealed the judge’s ruling. That led officials to postpone Williams’ retrial – which had been expected to begin this week – until at least May.
Because Errickson is due to give birth around May, the postponement effectively meant she would not handle the trial.
Neither she nor Barnes returned calls seeking comment.
“It’s clearly a prosecution in disarray,” said Joseph Tacopina, a defense lawyer not involved in the case.
Williams is accused of the shotgun killing of a limo driver in his New Jersey mansion in 2002. A jury two years later hung on the question of his guilt on a manslaughter charge, but convicted him of charges related to a botched cover-up of his role in the driver’s death.