By 9:15 a.m. Friday, Jayson Williams had crossed over the Rikers Bridge, leaving the island prison behind in favor of a chilly Queens morning.
The former Nets star had spent the past eight months there, serving out a majority of his one-year sentence for a DUI he picked up in 2010. Before that, he’d spent 18 months in a New Jersey State Prison in connection with the shooting death of Costas “Gus” Christofi, his chauffeur who died from a Browning 12-gauge shotgun blast to the chest in Williams’ home in Alexandria Township in 2002.
He did not speak with a small group of reporters waiting outside the prison.
“I am eager to see my daughters, my mother and siblings and make amends for what they’ve been through,” Williams told the Associated Press through his manager, Akhtar Farzaie. “Start my life over with God being first and in the center of everything I do.”
Farzaie could not be reached for further comment regarding Williams’ future plans.
Williams interaction with those outside his inner circle was limited to a New York Correctional Department bus that pulled up alongside the parking lot on Hazen Street where prisoners are typically released. Though no passengers came out, the bus followed a white Chevrolet Yukon with New Jersey plates along the road leading outside the complex, taking a right onto 19th Avenue and a quick left on 49th.
It is believed that Williams, 44, then exited the bus and got into the SUV, which sped off through the neighborhood of brick double-houses and pink-and-green trees dotting the sidewalk.
A public information officer who oversees Rikers Island and a “released” status on his Inmate Lockup System database page, confirmed his exit.
The procession ended what had become a twisted life for the former St. John’s standout off the court — a player who once earned a six-year, $86-million contract from the Nets in 1999 but broke his right leg just 30 games into the deal. He would never play again.
• In 1992, Williams was accused of busting a mug over the head of a local health club worker at a Chicago bar.
• In 1994, he was accused of firing a weapon at an unoccupied car in the Meadowlands parking lot.
• In the 2004 trial relating to Christofi’s death, Williams was found guilty of four charges of an attempted cover-up of the incident. Williams accepted a plea that mandated at least 18 months in prison.
• An allegedly suicidal and violent Williams was tasered by New York City cops in his hotel room back in 2009.
• Less than a month later, he was arrested in Raleigh, North Carolina for punching a man in a bar fight.
• Days before accepting the plea deal on the cover-ups, early on the morning of Jan. 10, 2010, Williams ran into a tree while driving drunk in Manhattan, fracturing his neck.
Yet still, teammates remember a tenacious defender and rebounder, one who stood out among the league’s toughest players underneath the basket.
Chris Carr, who joined Williams in New Jersey amid his final season, recalls a voice of solidarity that held together a locker room full of different personalities. One who would invite teammates to his sprawling mansion to use his basketball court and eat his food.
His hope was that this was the person riding up 49th street yesterday, finally apart from his troubled past.
“I hope it doesn’t scar him for everything good that he did,” Carr said over the phone. “It resonates, you don’t ever anticipate that anyone is going to be sitting there looking at a murder charge. It makes you say ‘Well what happened? How did it happen?
“Sometimes bad things happen to good people, and that’s just the nature of life. Hopefully he’ll be able to recover from it.”
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