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Hunterdon County Prosecutor’s Office will recuse itself
BY JOE TYRRELL
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
Bolstered by a New Jersey Supreme Court ruling, attorneys for Jayson Williams will file a series of motions pursuing racial bias in the investigation and prosecution of the former NBA star for the 2002 shooting death of a limousine driver.
The Hunterdon County Prosecutor's Office will recuse itself "at least" from hearings on the motions, and perhaps from Williams' re-trial on a reckless manslaughter charge, William McGovern, a county assistant prosecutor, told Superior Court Judge Edward Coleman.
As a result, a new trial would not begin until next year on charges stemming from Williams' fatal shooting of driver Costas "Gus" Christofi early on Feb. 14, 2002 in the bedroom of the player's Alexandria mansion.
Coleman pushed the tentative re-trial date back to Jan. 4, "because of the possibility of new attorneys coming into the case. They would need time to get ready."If the Hunterdon prosecutors withdraw from the case entirely, it could be handed over to the state Attorney General's Office or another county's prosecutors.
Williams looked thin and fit in Coleman's Somerville courtroom following an April 27 incident in a Manhattan hotel, where police reportedly used a taser to subdue the distraught former player. He was hospitalized for observation after police reported finding suicide notes and empty pill bottles in his room.
"He's doing well," said one of his attorneys, Joseph Hayden.
Williams did not speak in the courtroom and a gag order precludes the parties from discussing the case outside it. Most of the session was conducted in Coleman's chambers, where discussions failed to untangle the other complications in a high-profile case that already has been to trial once.
In Somerville in April 2004, a jury cleared Williams of the most serious charges but convicted him for a bungled attempt at a cover-up the circumstances of the shooting. The jury deadlocked on a reckless manslaughter charge.
Since then, the prosecutor's office has planned a re-trial on that charge, while defense attorneys have pressed appeals. In February, the state Supreme Court ruled the prosecutor's office must turn over all materials related to a slur allegedly made by William Hunt, who was the prosecutor's former captain of detectives at the time of the case, against Williams, who is of mixed race.
Building on that, Hayden told Coleman that the defense "will use the new evidence to supplement all our motions."
