LI man sentenced for jury tampering

An Atlantic Beach man was sentenced Tuesday to 10 days in jail for tampering with the jury in a high-profile trial last year in which a Garden City mother of four was convicted of trying to hire a hit man to kill her estranged husband.

Frank Trapani, 23, was found guilty last month of contacting a member of the jury during Susan Williams' 2010 trial. A Nassau District Court jury found that Trapani, who is dating Williams' 21-year-old daughter Alexis, contacted a man he knew on the jury during the trial.

Trapani's lawyer, Marc Gann, said Trapani will likely only be in jail until Friday, because he will get time off for good behavior and because inmates scheduled for release over the weekend get out the preceding Friday.

Gann said he would have preferred for Judge Andrew Engle to sentence Trapani to community service, but said he was at least glad that Engle seemed to understand that Trapani had acted out of naiveté, not malice.

"I'm glad the judge recognized that Frank isn't a bad guy, and didn't have any evil intent in what he did," Gann said. "I can't argue with the judge's feeling that he needed to send a message about something he believed affected the integrity of the judicial system."

Prosecutors said Trapani, who attended Williams' trial with Alexis, saw a juror he was acquainted with, Brian McGee. Trapani winked at McGee from his seat in the courtroom, a spokesman for Nassau District Attorney Kathleen Rice said.

Trapani later phoned McGee and told him that Williams had been "set up" and that he didn't want to see her serve any more time in jail, the spokesman said.

Trapani later told Williams' lawyer, John Carman of Garden City, that he had contacted McGee, prosecutors said. Carman immediately notified Nassau County Court Judge Norman St. George, who dismissed McGee from the jury, prosecutors said.

Williams, 45, was convicted Nov. 15 of second-degree conspiracy and second-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument. She is serving 8 1/3 to 25 years in prison.

Prosecutors said she put a $500 deposit down on what was described as a $20,000 job to kill Peter Williams, 46, with whom she was going through a bitter divorce. The supposed hit man was actually an undercover detective.