Jayson Williams Murder Case: Was Charged In 2002 With The Accidental Shooting Death Of A Limo Driver

Jayson Williams Murder Case – Was Jayson Williams accused of killing a limousine driver? For the murder in 2002, he was given an 18-month jail sentence.

Basketball player Jayson Williams is no longer active in the league.

Following the 1990 NBA Draft, he played his first three seasons with the Phoenix Suns before being moved to the Philadelphia 76ers.

Williams played for the Nets for the remainder of his career and was an All-Star in 1998.

In a similar vein, Williams was chosen by the Phoenix Suns with the 21st overall pick in the first round of the 1990 NBA Draft.

On October 28, 1990, the Suns traded a 1993 first-round selection pick to the Philadelphia 76ers for the draft rights to Jayson.

Jayson Williams Murder Case: Was Charged In 2002 With The Accidental Shooting Death Of A Limo Driver

Yes, Jayson was charged in 2002 with the accidental shooting death of a limousine driver.

Driver Costas “Gus” Christofi, 55, was shot and died on February 14, 2002, at Williams’ estate in Alexandria Township, New Jersey.

To transport Williams’ NBA charity team from a Bethlehem, Pennsylvania event to his estate, located about 30 miles (48 km) northwest of Trenton, New Jersey, Christofi had been recruited.

Jayson Williams Murder
Jayson was charged in 2002 with the accidental shooting death of a limousine driver (Source: eurweb)

There were players from Williams’ NBA charity basketball team in the area. According to The New York Post, Christofi was killed by a shotgun Williams was playing with while conducting a tour of his 30,000 square foot (2,800 m2) House.

According to cba.ca, Williams was cleared of the more serious allegations against him in April 2004, but the jury couldn’t agree on a charge of careless manslaughter. A retired NBA player was found guilty on four counts of attempting to hide the shooting.

Similarly, on April 21, 2006, a Hunterdon County appeals court decided that Williams might face a second trial for the alleged reckless manslaughter that led to Christofi’s gunshot death.

The court repeatedly postponed the retrial for several reasons, including the State’s 2008 appeal of a decision relating to prosecutorial misconduct during the first trial.

Williams entered a guilty plea to aggravated assault on January 11, 2010.

He was finally given a sentence of five years in prison on February 23, 2010, with the possibility of parole after 18 months.

When Did Jayson Williams Release From Prison?

Jayson was released in April 2012. He had additional run-ins with the authorities upon his release from prison.

Not to mention, in 2009, he was also detained for his involvement in a bar brawl in North Carolina.

Jayson Williams Murder
Jayson was released in April 2012. He had additional run-ins with the authorities upon his release from prison (Source: nypost)

After a protracted battle with alcoholism, the now-retired New Jersey Nets power forward, who served a year and a half in jail for shooting Christofi to death, claims he is trying to put his life in order.

He has relocated to the Florida-based Epiphany Treatment Center, where he is serving as a mentor to addicts on a volunteer basis.

Williams initially enrolled at Epiphany to receive treatment for himself, but he now claims that helping others has kept him happy and clean, as revealed by Dailymail.co.

Inside Jayson Williams’s Married Life

Jayson wed three times prior in his life. In 1996, Williams proposed to model Cynthia Bailey to marry him at halftime of a basketball game that was broadcast nationwide. Later, the two split up.

After then, in December 1999, Williams wed Kellie Batiste; shortly after, they became divorced. He again married Tanya Young in 2000, and they had two daughters.

Yung was a former model and appeared on Basketball Wives: L.A., a reality television program on VH1. Sadly, they divorced in 2011. 

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