Jayson Williams Sentenced to 1 Year in DWI

(New York Post) - Former NBA star Jayson Williams -- still serving an up-to-five year prison term in New Jersey for accidentally shot-gunning his driver -- got slammed in Manhattan Friday with the maximum sentence of one additional year jail for drunk-driving into a tree, the New York Post reported.

Court officials kept him rear-cuffed for the whole proceeding. And the judge even ordered him to pay up to replace the tree, a 20-foot-high (6m) honey locust he rammed on Avenue C: $16,643.

Under his plea to misdemeanor driving while intoxicated, Williams will serve his term in Jersey and go straight to jail on Rikers Island. His total time behind bars will now be a maximum of six years, including his six months already in.

With good behavior and a generous Jersey parole board, he could be out in as little as 20 months from now. Still, Williams called the driving while intoxicated (DWI) sentence "excessive," in an impassioned statement to Manhattan Criminal Court judge Rita Mella.

"I'm going to come back to New York to do another year -- it seems excessive," the disgraced NBA star, towering over the defense table in his beige prison jumpsuit, told the judge when she asked if he had anything to say.

"But it's a small price to pay if it helps to deter drunk driving. I'll be the poster child for that if it's going to save lives."

Williams was busted January 5 after slamming his Mercedes into the tree on Avenue C in the Lower East Side, the crash fueled by a 0.19 blood alcohol level that left him with a fractured vertebra in his neck.

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