Ex-Uber driver sentenced to jail for child endangerment

The ex-Uber driver whom a jury acquitted of kidnapping will serve a 60-day jail sentence and three years of probation for child endangerment after an encounter with a teenager he picked up at a Sweet 16 party in Atlantic Beach.

"You changed this young lady's outlook on the world. And that's a tragedy," Acting State Supreme Court Justice Howard Sturim told Sean Williams, 34, of Brooklyn, while sentencing him Friday for the misdemeanor conviction.

Prosecutors alleged at Williams’ trial that he picked up a 15-year-old at The Sands Atlantic Beach to drive her home to Merrick on July 12, 2019, before “hitting on her” and asking her to get dinner and drinks after she’d said she was too young to drive.

Williams canceled the Uber route before heading towards his Brooklyn home, asking questions of the teenager that made it clear he wanted sex, prosecutor Matthew Perry also argued during the January trial.

But Williams’ attorney, Jason Russo, contended there was a miscommunication between driver and passenger and that the passenger had agreed to get dinner and perhaps a drink with Williams before changing her mind. Williams assumed she was at least 18 because of Uber age policy for riders who are alone, Russo also told jurors.

Newsday isn't publishing the teenager’s name because it was alleged she was the victim of a sexually motivated crime while a minor. She and her family declined to comment Friday.

Perry asked for the maximum sentence of 364 days in jail for Williams, saying the defendant changed the teenager's life forever during a night on which she was "terrified and traumatized."

Russo asked for a conditional discharge for Williams, telling the judge: "That day, the only thing he did wrong was violate his contract with Uber in the manner in which he tried to socialize with one of his guests."

Williams also spoke in court, saying he never meant any harm.

"It's really painful to know you're accused of something you did not do," he added.

The trial showed Williams pulled over at a McDonald’s in Brooklyn after the teenager said she had to use the bathroom. She went inside and called 911 after speaking to restaurant workers.

Now a college freshman, she testified the encounter was the scariest time of her life. But the 18-year-old also said during a cross-examination that Williams never touched her and didn’t say he wanted to do anything to her sexually.

Williams had been facing up to 25 years in prison if the jury had convicted him of felony kidnapping. But they cleared him of two kidnapping charges and a misdemeanor unlawful imprisonment charge, while finding him guilty of child endangerment.