Ex-NBA star gets 5 years in fatal NJ shooting

SOMERVILLE, N.J. - Former NBA star Jayson Williams was sentenced to 5 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.

Williams 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 at Williams' estate in Alexandria Township, N.J., 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. State Superior Court Judge Edward Coleman went along with a plea agreement that spelled out the 5-year prison sentence and the potential for Williams to be released as early as summer 2011.

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."

Adams wrote in a letter read by a court employee that the punishment "didn't fit the crime" and spoke of "eight years of agony watching Jayson Williams prance around and live his life and acting like nothing happened."

Williams paid Christofi's family more than $2 million in 2003 to settle a wrongful-death lawsuit.

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.