SOMERVILLE, N.J. — Former NBA star Jayson Williams was sentenced to five years in prison Tuesday for fatally shooting a hired limo driver in 2002, ending an eight-year legal odyssey by tearfully apologizing to the victim’s family. He will be eligible for parole in 18 months.
Williams, avoiding a retrial on a reckless manslaughter count that deadlocked the jury at his 2004 trial, pleaded guilty last month to aggravated assault in the death of Costas Christofi on Feb. 14, 2002. At the same 2004 trial, he was acquitted of aggravated manslaughter but convicted on four counts of covering up the shooting.
The sentences on the assault and cover-up counts will run concurrently.
In court Tuesday, a tearful Williams turned and apologized to Andrea Adams, Christofi’s sister, saying: “There’s not a day I wake up that I don’t feel sorry for what I did to Mr. Christofi and that I put you through this.”
Williams, who turned 42 on Monday, played nine seasons with the Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Nets before a leg injury forced him to retire in 2000. He was in the second year of a six- year, $86 million contract.
Williams paid Christofi’s family more than $2 million in 2003 to settle a wrongful death lawsuit.
