Jayson Williams arraigned on drunken-driving charges after crash earlier this week

Williams arraigned on drunken-driving charges

NEW YORK — Former NBA star Jayson Williams told a police officer he was “sorry for causing trouble” about an hour after crashing his SUV into a tree near a highway, prosecutors said Thursday at the ex-player’s arraignment on drunken driving charges.

A tired-looking Williams appeared at the proceeding via video link from Bellevue Hospital, where he is being treated for a minor bone fracture in his neck and cuts to his face. He was wearing a neck brace and bandage above his right eye.

He didn’t enter a plea. His bail was set at $10,000, and he will have to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet if released.

Williams is awaiting retrial in a manslaughter case in New Jersey and it wasn’t immediately clear how the drunken driving case would affect his bail status there.

Police said Williams was drinking before the 3:15 a.m. crash Tuesday. The black Mercedes-Benz SUV was exiting FDR Drive at East 20th Street in Manhattan when it veered off a curved exit and hit a tree.

Williams was in the passenger seat when officers arrived, and he told them someone else had been driving, according to police. But witnesses reported to police seeing Williams in the driver’s seat, moving to the passenger’s side after the crash.

Williams is awaiting retrial on a reckless manslaughter charge stemming from a 2002 shooting death of a hired driver at his house in February 2002. A hearing set for November to enter a plea in that case was indefinitely postponed. Last month, lawyers in New Jersey asked to be removed from his defense, and a hearing on that issue was set for next week.

Williams retired from the New Jersey Nets in 2000 after a decade in the NBA, unable to overcome a broken leg suffered a year earlier. At the time, he was in the second year of a six-year, $86 million contract.

He was later an NBA analyst for NBC, but was suspended after the 2002 shooting.

Witnesses testified that Williams had been drinking and was showing off a shotgun in his bedroom when he snapped the weapon shut and it fired one shot that struck the driver, Costas Christofi, in the chest. They also testified that Williams initially placed the gun in the dead man’s hands and instructed those present to lie about what happened.

The defense maintained the shooting was an accident and that Williams panicked afterward.

He was acquitted of more serious charges, but a jury deadlocked on a reckless manslaughter count.