Susan Williams Gets Maximum Sentence

Susan Williams received the maximum sentence of 8 1/3 to 25 years in jail for conspiring to have her husband, Peter Williams, killed. Judge Norman St. George showed no leniency toward the Garden City mother of four, stating she has expressed no remorse for her conduct.

"The defendant completed each and every step necessary to have her husband killed," Judge St. George said in court Friday morning. "She wanted a divorce by murder."

A jury also found Williams guilty of forging Peter's signature to make her the owner of his $1 million life insurance policy.

"Justice has prevailed in this case," said Anne Donnelly, deputy chief of the district attorney's economic crimes bureau.

The Garden City mother of four, who pleaded not guilty to all charges, has been in and out of jail since her arrest in March. A tearful Williams read a statement in court Friday, apologizing to her parents and her four children. Her eldest, 20-year-old Alexis, was emotional in the court room.

"I have no explanation," a tearful Williams said of her actions over the past nine months. "All I know is that I tried to be a great mother."

During her trial, Williams' lawyer, John Carman of Garden City, portrayed his client as a distraught woman beaten down by a nasty divorce and a tough bout with cancer. He urged the jury to see Joseph Labella – a private investigator Williams hired to dig up dirt on Peter, for who he is – "a master manipulator." (Williams asked Labella to find her the hit man. He instead notified police, who set up the sting operation.)

The smoking gun in the case was surveillance audio and video taken by the Nassau County District Attorney's office of Williams handing over a photo of her husband, his home and work address, license plate number and a down payment on the $20,000 hit to the supposed hit man - an undercover detective - even after he gave her numerous chances to back out.

Prosecutors described Williams as a greedy woman willing to do "whatever she wants, whenever she wants to make herself a million dollars richer" during opening statements of her highly publicized criminal trial, which actually ended in a mistrial.

It didn't take long for a newly selected jury to convict Williams of second-degree conspiracy and second-degree possession of a forged instrument.

"Susan Williams wanted her husband dead and stopped at nothing to make it happen," District Attorney Kathleen Rice said Friday. "Every shred of evidence in this case pointed to a cold-blooded woman who laughed while discussing her husband's murder."

Carman, who read letters from Williams' four children, aged 11-20, said they plan to appeal the sentence.

"Obviously, we're disappointed with the sentence ... I can't tell you that we're surprised. I think anybody in the courtroom could tell that the judge certainly based his sentence on reasons that supported a severe sentence as opposed to the many reasons that supported a lesser sentence," said Carman.

"Susan Williams is incredibly remorseful. The system, the way it functioned in her case, gave her no opportunity to demonstrate that. This case was treated and cherry picked to be handled in a certain way."