Murder for hire

A mother of four from Garden City, formerly of Rockville Centre, has been arrested after paying $20,000 to a person she thought was a hit man to kill her husband, according to Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice. The “hit man,” Rice said, was actually an undercover Nassau County police detective.

Susan Williams, 43, was arrested by detectives from the NCPD’s D.A. Squad and charged with second-degree conspiracy and second-degree criminal solicitation.

According to Rice, Williams approached a source on Feb. 19 and told him she wanted to have her husband, Peter Williams, murdered and that she wanted the source to arrange it. Instead of finding a hit man, the source contacted the D.A.’s office.

On Feb. 23, while under audio surveillance, the source called Williams to tell her that he could arrange a meeting with a hit man. The meeting, between Williams and the undercover detective, took place on Feb. 28 and, according to Rice’s office, Williams told him that she and her husband were in the middle of divorce proceedings and she wanted him killed.

Williams was told that would cost her $20,000. At another meeting between the two, on March 3 — at which, according to police, she was given numerous opportunities to reconsider — Williams gave the undercover detective a photo of her husband, his home and work address, his license plate number and a $500 down payment.

“That this defendant so casually decided to organize the murder of her husband shocks the conscience,” Rice said. “She was given numerous opportunities to call this off, yet she pursued it vigorously until the very end. Thanks to the investigative work performed by both the Nassau County Police Department and members of my office, a life was saved and this defendant will now have to answer for her crimes.”

“She was a real poser,” recalled a former neighbor, who knew Williams when they lived on Bulson Road in Rockville Centre about seven years ago. “She was a social climber ... she spoke of her husband’s business, but she worked as a waitress on the weekends.”

The former neighbor added, “After she moved [from Rockville Centre], my daughter and I ran into her and her daughters at the shoe department in Lord & Taylor and she wouldn’t even acknowledge us.”

There was a “Closed” sign on the door of Peter Williams’s business, Williams Fencing Company, on Denton Avenue in Lynbrook, last Friday afternoon. His attorney, Nancy Dreeben, described her client’s divorce as “contentious” and explained that Peter Williams was awarded custody of the children on March 8 and is living with them in a house they once shared with his wife.

“He is focused on making up for lost time with [his] kids and protecting them during this very sad time,” Dreeben wrote in an e-mail.

Assistant District Attorney Jane Zwirn-Turkin of the Rackets Bureau is handling the case for the D.A.’s office. If convicted, Williams faces up to 25 years in prison, Zwirn-Turkin said. She was arraigned on March 5 in First District Court in Hempstead.

On Tuesday, Susan Williams’s attorney, John Carman, requested that bail be reduced, but Nassau County Judge Joseph Calabrese denied the request. Bail is still set at $1 million bond or $500,000 cash.

Judy Rattner contributed to this story. Comments about it? MMalloy@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 202.