VIA: CNN.com
Former New Jersey Nets star Jayson Williams was sentenced to five years in prison Tuesday for the fatal shooting of his limo driver in 2002.
Williams tearfully apologized to the family of Costas “Gus” Christofi during his sentencing hearing Tuesday morning.
“There’s not a day I wake up and I don’t feel sorry for what I did to Mr. Christofi,” Williams said.
He pleaded guilty last month to aggravated assault in the 2002 shooting death of Christofi, a limo driver he had hired.
Under the plea deal, Williams could have been sentenced to anywhere from 18 months without the possibility of parole to five years in prison.
Williams, who turned 42 on Monday, appeared before Somerset County Superior Court Judge Edward Coleman.
After sentencing, he will be taken to the Central Reception and Assignment Facility in Trenton, New Jersey, said Corrections Department spokeswoman Deirdre Fedkenheuer. There, over the course of several weeks, he will be photographed, DNA samples will be taken, and he will be given medical, dental, psychological and educational evaluations, she said.
Only afterward will a decision be made about where to send him, she said.
Williams waived his right to appeal.
In return, the state changed the indictment from a charge of reckless manslaughter to a charge of aggravated assault by recklessly causing bodily injury to another with a deadly weapon.
Prosecutors said in January they would recommend Williams be sentenced to five years in prison on four charges of attempting to cover up the fatal shooting. A jury convicted him of those charges in 2004.
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