SOMERVILLE, N.J. – Former NBA star Jayson Williams will face a retrial on a reckless manslaughter charge for the fatal shooting of a limo driver, a prosecutor said yesterday, and he will not be sentenced on his previous convictions in the case until the new trial is over.
Williams’ retrial is tentatively scheduled to begin next Jan. 10, and the hoopster will remain free until it’s concluded.
A jury last month convicted Williams of covering up his Feb. 14, 2002, shooting of Costas “Gus” Christofi, and acquitted him of aggravated manslaughter and other shooting-related counts. The jurors deadlocked 8-4 in favor of acquittal for reckless manslaughter.
“The state has decided that it wishes to proceed with the case on the mistried count,” prosecutor Steven Lember told Somerset County Court Judge Edward Coleman yesterday at a hearing attended by Williams and his wife.
After the hearing, Christofi’s sister, Andrea Adams, said, “I’m glad they made the right decision.”
Williams’ lawyer Billy Martin said the defense was not surprised by the decision, but added that “Mr. Williams is confident that another group of fair-minded jurors will agree [the shooting] was an accident, not a crime.”
Coleman denied the prosecutor’s request that he set a sentencing date for the former New Jersey Nets star on the cover-up convictions – which carry a maximum 13-year prison term – before Williams is retried.
Coleman bowed to defense arguments that sentencing Williams, 36, before the manslaughter trial could make it difficult to pick a fair jury in that case.
Christofi’s nephew, Chris Adams, scoffed at that, saying, “he’s going to be out on the streets for another eight months.”
Lember revealed he will ask the judge to reconsider a decision made last year to hold the trial in Somerset County instead of in Hunterdon County, where the shooting occurred.
Lember said he wants the retrial in Hunterdon with a local jury, and if picking an unbiased one there proves impossible he wants jurors selected from a county other than Somerset. He argued that massive publicity has made it impossible to pick unbiased jurors there.