Garden City mom convicted of conspiracy in hit-man case

A Nassau jury that had watched a videotape of Susan Williams trying to arrange for her husband's death took less than four hours Monday to convict her of conspiracy in the case.

Williams leaned against her lawyer as the jury forewoman read the verdict. The courtroom was hushed, and the Garden City mother of four did not look back at her family as court officers put her in handcuffs and led her away.

Williams, 44, will face a maximum of 81/3 to 25 years in prison when Nassau County Judge Norman St. George sentences her Dec. 17. She was found guilty of second-degree conspiracy and second-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument. She was found not guilty of fourth-degree criminal solicitation, but her acquittal on that misdemeanor charge does not lessen her possible prison sentence.

Williams' husband Peter, the target of the hit, was not in the courtroom for the 6 p.m. verdict, but his brother, John, said he felt good about it.

"We hope this will put an end to this now," he said.

Juror Christopher Burke, 75, said afterward in a phone interview that he could not help but feel sympathy toward Williams. But, he added, there was no escaping the video.

"You have to come down to the nitty-gritty and the nitty-gritty is that with the video and the audio - those you couldn't ignore," Burke said.

Also Monday, Nassau District Attorney Kathleen Rice announced that Susan Williams' daughter Alexis' boyfriend, Frank Trapani, 20, has been arrested and charged with jury tampering, after prosecutors said he improperly approached a juror last week. She did not give further details. That juror was dismissed Friday.

Prosecutors say Williams asked Joseph LaBella, a private investigator who had worked for her in the past, to find someone to hurt her husband, whom she was pitted against in an ugly divorce battle. LaBella told her he was connecting her with a hit man, but actually connected her with an undercover police officer, he testified.

In her closing argument Monday morning, Prosecutor Anne Donnelly went straight to the videotape. Williams met with the would-be hit man twice, Feb. 28 and March 3, the second time telling him she wanted her husband dead, not hurt, according to the videotapes.

St. George made the videotapes public for the first time Monday, after Newsday and the New York Post made a motion for copies Friday.

Rice said the tapes were critical evidence. "Jurors got a clear window into the soul of Susan Williams," Rice said.

"Not once do you hear her hesitate about what she wants to happen," Donnelly said in her closing argument. "She wants [her husband] Peter Williams gone."

Donnelly said in 2008, Susan Williams forged her husband's signature on a form that passed ownership of his $1 million life insurance policy for him to her.

Williams' defense lawyer, John Carman of Garden City, told the jury in his closing argument that at the time of the crime his client was worn down from a nasty divorce and a battle with cervical cancer, and was pushed into committing the crime by an overzealous private investigator and undercover police officer.

Carman, who called no witnesses, said they will appeal. "We'll continue to fight on behalf of Susan Williams," he said.

Burke said jurors acquitted Williams on criminal solicitation because they questioned the credibility of LaBella, whom he described as "the investigator who really instigated it."