Court hears Susan Williams talk to 'hit man' on tape

Sitting in an SUV in Eisenhower Park, Susan Williams tells the person she believes is a hit man that she has changed her mind about what she wants to happen to her estranged husband.

"If he's hurt, the kids are going to pity him and feel bad for him forever, and still not have any finances 'cause he's a --," she says on a police surveillance videotape recorded March 3 and played publicly for the first time Tuesday in Nassau County Court. She mentions that she holds a $1-million life insurance policy on her husband, Peter.

"You want him dead," the supposed hit man says at another point on the tape.

At that, Williams, of Garden City, nods and begins to laugh. "You said it," she says. "I don't want to say it."

Nicholas Occhino, the undercover Nassau County detective who posed as a hit man and videotaped Williams paying him a $500 deposit on a $20,000 hit, testified Tuesday at Williams' trial on charges she tried to arrange the slaying of Peter Williams, 46. The two are embroiled in a bitter divorce.

With Occhino on the stand, prosecutors played for the jury their key evidence: videotapes of the detective's two face-to-face meetings with Williams - one on Feb. 25 in a parking lot on Old Country Road in Carle Place, and the other March 3 in a parking lot in Eisenhower Park in East Meadow.

Williams, 44, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree and fourth-degree criminal solicitation, second-degree conspiracy and second-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument. If convicted, she could face a maximum of 81/3 to 25 years in prison.

Williams' lawyer, John Carman, of Garden City, is expected Wednesday to cross-examine Occhino. Carman has said that Occhino and Joseph LaBella, the private investigator who referred Williams to Occhino, steered the mother of four to do something that she never would have come up with on her own.

At the February meeting, the videotape shows Williams batting around ideas with Occhino about having her husband killed but seeming to settle for having him seriously hurt.

"If you want him dead, it's going to be $20,000," Occhino says on the tape, which appears to be shot through the front windshield of his sport utility vehicle.

"That's it?" Williams says, laughing.

Toward the end of that meeting, she tells Occhino, "I guess hurt him bad, so he can't speak. He's done."

On both tapes, Occhino says repeatedly that he doesn't want to put ideas in Williams' head. At several different points, he gives her the opportunity to walk away from the arrangement.

At the meeting March 3, the videotape shows Williams telling Occhino she is certain she wants her husband killed.

Occhino says he could cause a car crash that would kill Peter Williams. Susan Williams agrees, saying, "If it's an accident, that's great."

She appears nervous but cheerful throughout the meeting, smiling and chatting casually.

"This is pretty crazy I'm even doing this," she says. Then she jokes: "You're taping me."

William does express concern about whether she should attend her estranged husband's funeral, and whether the police might seize her computer hard drive.

"I don't want to be like a made-for-TV movie," she says.

Before leaving the car, Williams hands Occhino five $100 bills and a photo of her husband with information on the back that she says will help the hit man find him.

"If I could do it myself, I would," she says.

With Sophia Chang