Celebrity DWI News Links

New York, NY

Adding to a catalog of legal troubles, former New Jersey Nets star Jayson Williams was charged with drunken driving in Manhattan early yesterday after crashing his SUV into a tree, police said.

Williams, awaiting retrial on a reckless manslaughter charge in the 2002 shooting of a limousine driver, suffered facial cuts and a broken bone in his neck in the 3:15 a.m. crash, according to a law enforcement official with knowledge of the case. The official spoke on condition of anonymity.

Williams was not paralyzed by the neck injury, the New York Daily News reported.

Police said Williams, driving a black Mercedes-Benz SUV, struck the tree after veering off an exit ramp of the FDR Drive at East 20th Street.

Responding officers found him sitting in the passenger seat, and authorities said he told them someone else was driving, a claim countered by witnesses to the crash. He refused to take a Breathalyzer test, police said.

Williams was taken to Bellevue Hospital Center in Manhattan. He could not be reached yesterday, but his longtime friend and manager, Akhtar Farzaie, expressed support for the beleaguered ex-Net.

"I've known Jayson for many years as his friend/manager and know that it is not within his character to ever drink and drive," Farzaie said.

The crash marks the latest in a string of legal woes for Williams.

In April, New York City police used a stun gun to subdue him in a Lower Manhattan hotel after they received a call about a suicidal and violent guest. At the time, he was ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation. A month later, police in Raleigh, N.C., charged him with simple assault after a bar fight. The count was later dropped.

Williams, who developed a reputation as a ferocious rebounder before injury cut short his NBA career a decade ago, is awaiting retrial in the most serious case against him: The shooting death of limo driver Costas "Gus" Christofi, 55.

In 2002, Williams was showing a shotgun to friends at his former Alexandria Township estate when the gun fired.

Williams beat an aggravated manslaughter charge at his 2004 trial, but jurors deadlocked on the reckless manslaughter count.

He was convicted of trying to cover the shooting up but has not been sentenced pending retrial. Williams remains free on $270,000 bail.

Yesterday's accident came less than a week before he was scheduled to return to Superior Court in Somerville to hear whether a judge will let his high-profile defense team withdraw from the case.

Lawyers Joseph Hayden Jr. of Roseland and Billy Martin of Washington, D.C., asked out of the case last month, citing a breakdown of trust and communication with their client. Hayden and Martin have been Williams' lead attorneys since the first trial in 2004. Also seeking to withdraw are lawyers Christopher Adams and Leigh-Anne Mulrey, who are with Hayden's firm.

While the lawyers are under a gag order in the manslaughter case, Adams offered a comment on the crash.

"At the moment, we are focused on the treatment of Jayson's injuries and thankful to the medical and law enforcement personnel who have helped him," he said. The state Attorney General's Office declined to say whether prosecutors would seek to revoke Williams' bail given yesterday's arrest.