Former Nets / St. Johns standout Jayson Williams, whose post-playing career has included charges not limited to manslaughter, cover-up of said killing and numerous scrapes with the law, is currently serving a one-year DUI sentence at New York’s Riker’s Island after completing an 18-month stretch in relation to the 2002 shooting of limousine driver Costas Christofi. One of Williams’ fellow inmates, Christopher Hughes, tells the NY Post’s Page 6 that Williams, “is beloved by all behind bars with him, from crackheads to gangbangers.” Michael Alig was presumably unavailable for comment.
“People treat him like a star,” said Hughes, who was released from Rikers last week after serving time for reckless assault. “Every single person shakes his hand. He is like Moses, the Moses of Rikers.”
“Jayson would sign people’s Bibles,” Hughes told us. “I would ask him why, and he’d say, ‘Fake it till you make it.’ I thought he was saying, ‘If I can get them in the door through this signature, then at least I got them in the room to see Christ.’ ”
Williams worked as a suicide-prevention assistant for a week on the midnight shift, to help inmates who were contemplating killing themselves, Hughes told us.
Jayson, also a former Philadelphia 76er, who receives “tons” of mail and spends four hours a day writing back, is also penning a second book, “Humbled,” which includes the bombshell that he was sexually abused as a child.
“It’s raw,” said Hughes, who read excerpts while in prison.