Nine

I walked my wife to the train today, like I do almost every day. I pick her up too. She works in a dentist's office, not exactly what you'd call a cheery place, so I make her smile a bit before and after work. On my way back home to drink the rest of my coffee, I pick up the free newspapers, amNEW YORK and metro new york and once a week the Village Voice. Most of the time the headlines are superficial garbage or stories that I expect to read; I'd read stories about how the war in Afghanistan is going well, such and such number of troops dead such and such injured, things so large and out of my hands that I kept my outrage suppressed. Today an old story resurfaced. Jayson Williams, former NJ Nets basketball player was sentenced yesterday to five years but he might do as little as eighteen months for accidentally shooting his limo driver in the chest with a shotgun as he was showing it off at his house to some friends in 2002. Williams then tried to cover it up. In 2004 the jury came back deadlocked on a manslaughter charge but not so on the cover-up. Kent Culuko testified on April 25, 2002. From the transcript:

''Did you later alter that shotgun by wiping it clean of fingerprints and moving it?'' asked Steven C. Lember, the acting Hunterdon County prosecutor.

''Yes,'' Mr. Culuko replied.

''Did you receive instruction to do this to the shotgun?''

''Yes,'' was the answer again.

''Who gave you these instructions?'' Mr. Lember asked.

''Jayson Williams,'' Mr. Culuko responded.

Mr. Lember did not ask who had fired the gun.

A few days later on May 2, 2002, new charges of aggravated manslaughter were filed. It carries a sentence of ten to thirty years unlike a manslaughter charge which carries five to ten.

Two months later on June 7th, Williams pled not guilty.

A week after that on June 14, 2002, Officer Eric Allena was indicted on second-degree official misconduct and third-degree witness tampering charges,

John W. Gordnick, on August 23, 2002, testified that he hid Williams' bloody clothes on the night Costas Christofi was shot and killed according to Williams' direction.

Sticky yet?

On October 30, 2002 prosecutors claimed that eight hours after the shooting Williams' blood level was 0.11 (0.10 is the legal limit in New Jersey). Let me interject here that Williams' is a monster of a man. It's my opinion he must have been pie-eyed when the shooting took place, but it's just an opinion.

Mr. Christofi had been hired to chauffeur Mr. Williams and 11 guests, including four members of the Harlem Globetrotters, to dinner at the Mountainview Chalet in Bethlehem Township, N.J. Early in the evening, the court papers say, Mr. Williams singled out Mr. Christofi ''and began cursing at him.''

''The defendant's conduct was such that several of the witnesses were uncomfortable with what appeared to them to be an uncalled for public humiliation,'' the papers say.

When Mr. Christofi, who was known as Gus, rose to leave the table, Mr. Williams told him he had only been joking, the papers say.

Prosecutors said the shooting occurred after Mr. Williams's party returned to his $3.5 million estate sometime after 2 a.m. There, Mr. Williams took the shotgun from a cabinet during a tour of his bedroom. The papers say that Mr. Williams owned at least six guns, and was trying to show a few guests his prowess with weapons.

''The defendant announced to those around them that he wanted them to watch what he was going to do with a shotgun, stating that he was 'a professional,' '' the papers say.

Mr. Williams opened the 12-gauge Browning over-under shotgun, the papers say, and directed an expletive at Mr. Christofi, who was standing by the bedroom doorway.

''The defendant then flipped the shotgun together in one motion,'' the papers say. ''The shotgun immediately discharged from the lower barrel.''

Mr. Christofi was about three feet away when he was struck in the right chest by 12 pellets of buckshot, prosecutors wrote. Mr. Williams, the papers say, dropped to his hands and knees, lowered the shotgun to the floor and uttered an expletive, saying he had ruined his life.

Taken from an article of the New York Times, by By RICHARD LEZIN JONES Published: October 31, 2002 on page B5 of the New York edition.

In December, Williams' lawyers tried to get the case dismissed. They failed to do so. On February 3, 2003 an appellate court decided to hear motions of dismissal. The trial that was slated to begin on February 18th was postponed till March 12th.

On March 19th a state Court of Appeals ruled that the prosecution had to release a recording of the 911 phone call made Jayson Williams' home on the night Costas Christofi was killed. Oh, and the prosecution tacked on a weapons charge, adding, if found guilty, Williams doing 55 years.

On April 4th 2003 a settlement was reached in wrongful death suit by the brother and sister of Costas Christofi in the amount of $2.75 million. The 911 tape had Victor Williams, Jayson Williams's brother telling a 911 dispatcher that Christofi had shot himself and that he himself was sleeping when the shooting occurred.

After this Williams' lawyers tried to get a new grand jury to look at the manslaughter charges. No dice, but Judge Edward M. Coleman of State Superior Court granted the change-of-venue motion. On January 13 2004 jury selection began in Somerville.

From an article By BOB HANLEY Published in the New York Times: February 5, 2004.

The judge in the manslaughter trial of Jayson Williams refused on Wednesday to allow prosecutors to introduce evidence about Mr. Williams's killing of his pet watchdog with two shotgun blasts in 2001.

Katharine Errickson, an assistant Hunterdon County prosecutor, said the shooting of the dog undercut the defense contention that the fatal shooting of Mr. Christofi was a tragic accident. Ms. Errickson said Mr. Williams had a history of recklessly handling guns after drinking.

The dog was shot, Ms. Errickson said, in August 2001, about six months before Mr. Christofi was killed, after Mr. Williams had been drinking in a restaurant with two friends, including Dwayne Schintzius, a former professional basketball player who was staying at Mr. Williams's estate at the time. Ms. Errickson said prosecutors learned of the shooting in an anonymous letter mailed to them.

She said detectives later learned that the watchdog was killed over a $100 bet. After the three men returned to Mr. Williams's estate from the restaurant, Mr. Schintzius bet Mr. Williams $100 he could drag the dog out of the home, Ms. Errickson said. Mr. Williams accepted the bet, she said. Mr. Schintzius then grabbed the Rottweiler by its hind legs and pulled it from the house.

Mr. Williams left the room, and Mr. Schintzius thought he would return with the $100, Ms. Errickson said. Instead, she went on, he came back with a shotgun and fired two rounds at the dog, nearly decapitating it. Ms. Errickson said that Mr. Williams then reloaded the weapon, pointed it at Mr. Schintzius and told him, using a profanity, to get the ''dog off my porch or you're next.''

February 1oth, 2004, William R. Martin, one of Williams' lawyers, told the jury in his opening statement that his client was unaware of any risk as he handled the shotgun and did not consciously fire it at Mr. Christofi. ''Jayson Williams will tell you what happened that night,'' Mr. Martin told the jury. ''Jayson Williams will tell you how this horrific, totally unforeseeable accident occurred.'

Sorry, unforseeable? Really? You're drunk, even a little drunk, and you pick up a gun? A LOADED GUN? A LOADED GUN AND YOU'RE A SHIT TWAT WHO BUYS GUNS 'CAUSE YOU HAVE THE MONEY TO? You're a moron. A complete and utter fuckhead. Sorry. Right. Back to it.

On March 25th the defense and witnesses to the shooting say this: the gun could have misfired. I'll spare you the details.

April 5th, 2004. Trial is suspended for a week.

April 9th, 2004. Defense attourneys ask for dismissal.

April 12th, 2004. Judge rules against dismissal.

April 29th 2004. Jury's deadlocked. Has reached verdicts in six of the charges and were deeply divided on the two other counts.

April 30th 2004. Jury, in a split split verdict acquits Williams of aggravated manslaughter and two other serious charges, and a mistrial was declared on a fourth -- reckless manslaughter. He was convicted of four other lesser charges that he had covered up his involvement in the shooting.

A month later, on May 21st, 2004, prosecutors on the first trial decide to retry Williams on the charge of reckless manslaughter to begin in January of 2005.

February 18, 2005. The case is delayed till April 21, 2005.

On January 11, 2011, Jayson Williams pleads guilty.

On February 23, 2011 is sentenced to 5 years. There's a possibility he might get out in 18 months.

I hope when he gets out he kills himself.