Former NBA star Jayson Williams added a drunken driving charge to his list of legal woes on Tuesday after NYPD responded to his black Mercedes SUV that had veered off an exit ramp and struck a tree.
Williams, who is awaiting retrial on a manslaughter case in New Jersey, suffered a minor bone fracture in his neck and cuts to his face in the crash, authorities said. He was in the passenger seat when officers arrived, and he told them someone else had been driving, according to police. But witnesses told police they saw him in the driver’s seat, and officers said no one else was in the car.
The SUV was exiting FDR Drive at East 20th Street in Manhattan when it veered off the curved exit, authorities said. Police said it appeared Williams was drinking before the 3:15 a.m. crash.
He was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where he refused a breath test, authorities said. Police asked for a warrant to test blood taken by hospital officials for alcohol content. Police charged him with drunken driving at his hospital bed.
Last month, lawyers in New Jersey asked to be removed from his defense against a reckless manslaughter charge stemming from a 2002 incident in which his hired driver was shot to death in his house in February 2002.
Witnesses testified that Williams had been drinking and was showing off a shotgun in his bedroom when he snapped the weapon shut and it fired one shot that struck the driver, Costas Christofi, in the chest. They also testified that Williams initially placed the gun in the dead man’s hands and instructed those present to lie about what happened.
according to eurweb.com
