It’s been just a year and a half since ex-Nets star Jayson Williams was acquitted of aggravated manslaughter – in the shooting of his limo driver Costas (Gus) Christofi in the chest with a 12-gauge shotgun – and convicted of four lesser charges of covering up the incident and trying to make it look like a suicide.
But apparently that’s enough time for Williams (above) and his wife, Tanya, to throw a book party tonight at Il Postino for his lawyer, Linda Kenney – who repped him in the Christofi family’s civil suit, which he settled for $2.75 million – and former New York City chief medical examiner Michael Baden, Kenney’s husband.
The return address on the invitation, which omits Jayson’s name, is the Williams’ Who Knew? Estates in Milford, N.J., the scene of Christofi’s death.
The husband-and-wife team’s crime novel, “Remains Silent,” conjures “a terrifying vortex of murder and deceit,” according to Random House’s PR material, “a mounting body count” and “a shocking cover-up.”
Rich irony?
“I find your question bizarre,” Tanya Williams answered. “It would be along the line of saying that I shouldn’t see a movie that involves an accident. ¦ My husband’s read the book, my friends have read the book, you should read the book!”
Kenney told Lowdown: “The cases in the book are [drawn from real cases] ¦ but there’s nothing to do with the Jayson Williams case. It’s absolutely irrelevant.”
I can only presume that Benoit Benjamin and Dwayne Schintzius are not on the guest list. Though with any luck, Will Leitch received an invitation.
Caption I eagerly await: “Chris Morris, Jessica Coen, Will Leitch, Jamie Feick and Rumeal Robinson check out the canapes.”
I will say that the one time I ever had any contact with Jayson Williams, he was remarkably, uncommonly charming and nice. Of course, I was a freshman in high school interviewing him for the school paper, and he was neither drunk nor wielding a gun.
I encountered Mr. Williams on at least one occasion on the site of the former Lismar Lounge and can confirm that he neither shot me and made it look like a suicide, nor did he shoot a dog and demand that I bury it with him.
He might’ve been a little tipsy, however.