Sports

Jayson Williams: Suicidal ex-NBA Star Tasered at Manhattan Hotel

by Tina Kells | April 27, 2009 at 01:31 pm

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Jayson Williams, former New Jersey Nets star is on suicide watch at New York's St. Vincent's Hospital after being tasered by police at a Manhattan hotel. The ex-NBA star was said to be violent and suicidal when police arrived on scene. Williams' uncontrollable behavior left police with no choice but to subdue him by taser shock.

Williams' ex-wife Tanya Young Williams is with him in hospital and manager Akhtar Farzaie has told press that he is doing well. Stress and depression are believed to be a key factor in Jayson Williams' breakdown.

In 2002, Williams was charged with murder in the shooting death of 55-year-old limo driver Costas "Gus" Christofi. Jayson Williams had been hosting a charity event at his at this lavish "Who Knew?" estate home in Alexandria Township, N.J. when he accidentally discharged a weapon killing Christofi.

Jayson Williams was acquitted of all but one charge in 2006 and was facing a retrial for manslaughter. He paid Christofi's family nearly $3 million in a civil wrongful death suit but no new date has been set for his new criminal trial.

"He was barricaded, drinking, taking pills. He was overwhelmed," a police source said. "It all came crashing down."

Police were called to the Hilton Embassy Suites in Battery Park City at 4 a.m., after a female friend called security to report a disturbance in Williams' 15th-floor suite, the sources said.

Williams, 41, trashed his room, forcing Emergency Service Unit officers to subdue the former All-Star with a Taser gun, sources said. It took two sets of handcuffs to restrain the husky star, cops said.

Cops found several suicide notes, including a message scrawled on the wall. They said he was distraught over his divorce, his parents' illnesses and his impending retrial in the chauffeur-shooting case.