Once considered among the best rebounding big men in the NBA, Jayson Williams is now living and volunteering in a Florida rehab facility, where he's trying to remain sober. Williams recently talked to Sports Illustrated's Jon Wertheim in a new 60 Minutes Sports interview and said he was "being a coward" for covering up the 2002 shooting of his former limo driver.
The one-time All-Star, who spent the bulk of his nine-year career with the New Jersey Nets, shot Gus Christofi, while giving the limo driver a tour of his mansion. Williams showed Christofi a shotgun he owned, but while doing so, fired the gun, killing the driver. Panicking, Williams wiped off the gun, jumped in his pool and asked a friend to get rid off his clothes.
"[There is] nothing I can do or say to bring Mr. Christofi back. If there was I would do it," Williams tells Wertheim. "The cover-up was selfishness ... me trying to protect myself."
Williams was acquitted of aggravated manslaughter but was convicted on four counts for covering up the shooting and he pleaded guilty to aggravated assault.
Besides expressing regret over his past transgressions, Williams is now speaking out to help reduce the stigma of rehab. His episode of 60 Minutes Sports episode airs on at 8 p.m. Tuesday on Showtime.
