Judge: Woman's affairs admissible in hit-man trial

A Garden City woman accused of trying to hire a hit man to kill her husband will have to answer questions about affairs prosecutors say she had with her former boss and her husband's brother if she takes the stand at trial, a Nassau judge ruled Monday.

The trial of Susan Williams, 43, is scheduled to start jury selection Tuesday.

Prosecutors say Williams last February asked an acquaintance to refer her to a hit man to kill her husband, Peter, with whom she was facing a bitter divorce. Unknown to Williams, the would-be hit man was actually an undercover police officer, prosecutors said.

The mother of four faces charges of second-degree criminal solicitation and second-degree conspiracy. If convicted, she could face a maximum of 8 1/3 to 25 years in prison.

"Some of it's not pretty," said Williams' lawyer, John Carman of Garden City. Carman made a motion to seal the courtroom while his client's affairs and other lurid details of the case were discussed, but County Court Judge Norman St. George ruled against him.

According to prosecutor Jane Zwirn-Turkin, shortly before Susan Williams tried to arrange her husband's killing, her estranged husband had learned that she had slept with his brother nearly two decades earlier, and filed for divorce on those grounds.

"It's not when the affair happened, it's when Peter Williams found out," Zwirn-Turkin said. "He wanted this tried [in matrimonial court]. He wanted this aired," and Susan Williams did not want to be exposed, Zwirn-Turkin said, adding that that may have been a motive for the crime.

Carman said Peter Williams had long known about the affair between his wife and his brother, and Susan Williams had no need to fear exposure.

St. George also ruled if Williams takes the stand, prosecutors will be permitted to ask her about an affair they say she had with her former boss, Thomas Toscano. Toscano did not return a call Monday.

Zwirn-Turkin said Susan Williams ultimately sued Toscano and won a $300,000 settlement, $200,000 of which she kept. Zwirn-Turkin said Williams then hid that money in her divorce proceedings.

Finally, St. George ruled that Zwirn-Turkin can ask Williams, if she testifies, about the fact that she blamed her husband for giving her the sexually transmitted disease human papillomavirus, or HPV, which Williams said led to her developing cervical cancer.

Carman said in court that while those ugly allegations are part of the back and forth of a nasty divorce, they are not relevant now. "This is another example of petty matrimonial back and forth that has no place in a criminal trial," he said.