Ex NBA star Jayson Williams was zapped with a stun gun by police in his swank hotel suite Monday after the reportedly suicidal athlete resisted attempts by officers to take him to a hospital.
Police were called to the hotel in lower Manhattan’s Battery Park City neighborhood around 4 a.m. when a female friend reported that the former New Jersey Nets player was acting suicidal Williams was convicted in 2004 of trying to cover up a shooting at his home. Williams’ wife filed divorce papers this year claiming he was abusive and adulterous and had a drug problem. Proceedings continue.
When police arrived at his hotel suite, they found Williams apparently drunk and agitated. There were empty bottles of prescription drugs and several suicide notes.
Officers with the Emergency Services Unit, an elite team trained to deal with emotionally disturbed people, responded and stunned Williams with a Taser after he resisted attempts to be hospitalized.
The 41-year-old former All-Star played nine seasons with the Nets and the Philadelphia 76ers before retiring in 2000. An injury force him to retire.
He was convicted of trying to cover up the 2002 shooting death of his driver Costas “Gus” Christofi at his mansion in Alexandria Township, N.J. Prosecutors said Williams was giving friends and Christofi a tour of his estate. While in the master bedroom, he took a 12-gauge shotgun from a case and snapped it closed, according to testimony. The gun fired once, ripping a hole in the chest of Christofi, who died within minutes.
Williams then wiped down the weapon and placed it in the wounded 55-year-old man’s hands, stripped off his own clothes, handed them to a friend and jumped into his pool, according to testimony. The Williams defense maintained that the shooting was an accident and that he panicked afterward.
He was acquitted of aggravated manslaughter, but the jury deadlocked on a reckless-manslaughter count. A retrial is pending, and he has been free on bail since the shooting. He’s apologized to Christofi’s relatives and given them $2.5 million to settle a civil suit.
Williams could be sentenced to several years in prison on the cover-up conviction, but a judge ruled he wouldn’t be sentenced until after the retrial.
Williams graduated from New York City’s Christ the King High School, one of the country’s biggest producers of college and pro basketball stars.
He was a first-round pick in the 1990 NBA draft and went on to become a valuable Nets star. He was named an All-Star and ranked second in the NBA for the 1997-98 season with 13 rebounds per game and a league-high 443 offensive rebounds.
