Susan Williams receives maximum sentence

Susan Williams will spend the next 8 1/3 to 25 years in prison after Nassau County Judge Norman St. George sentenced her on Dec. 17 at the Nassau County Courthouse in Mineola.

The former Rockville Centre resident, a mother of four, was found guilty on Nov. 15 of attempting to hire a hit man last February to kill her estranged husband, and of forging his signature on a $1 million life insurance policy. She was found not guilty of criminal solicitation.

In March, the 44-year-old Garden City resident hired a man who offered to kill her husband, Peter Williams, while the two were struggling to finalize a divorce. The “hit man” was actually an undercover Nassau County police detective involved in a sting operation set up by Joseph LaBella, a private investigator who had been working for Susan Williams.

Surveillance tape of her encounter with the undercover officer, which took place in Eisenhower Park on March 3, was played for the jury during the trial, and mentioned again during Nassau County Prosecutor Anne Donnelly’s closing statement last Friday. “This was not a crime of passion …” Donnelly said. “This was a cold, calculated crime.”

On the tape, Williams is heard requesting that the murder be made to look like an accident. The hit was priced at $20,000.

Williams also mentioned on the videotape the life insurance policy in Peter Williams’s name, on which she forged his signature to make herself the beneficiary in the event that he died.

Before St. George sentenced her, Susan Williams tearfully read a statement. “I would like to apologize to my children and parents. …” she said. “I have no explanation … I’ve spent my life trying to be a great mother.”

Despite her statement, St. George issued the maximum sentence. “The defendant has not acknowledged her guilt …” he said. “The defendant definitely took matters into her own hands. … She wanted a divorce by murder.”

St. George also granted the prosecution’s request to have Susan Williams sign a court order of protection. The order protects Peter Williams from his ex-wife.

“Susan Williams wanted her husband dead and stopped at nothing to make it happen,” Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice said in a written statement. “Every shred of evidence in this case pointed to a cold-blooded woman who laughed while discussing her husband’s murder. Thanks to the hard work of members of the Nassau County Police Department and my office, however, this defendant’s violent plans never came to fruition.”

Williams’s attorney, John Carman, said he plans to appeal the sentence.

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