A friend of imprisoned former NBA star Jayson Williams who hid bloody clothes after a fatal shooting at Williams' New Jersey estate in 2002 has received a light sentence of a year's probation.

John Gordnick, 52, pleaded guilty to evidence tampering after taking bloody clothes that Williams gave him after the accidental shooting of limo driver Costas "Gus' Christofi. Gordnick put Williams' clothes in his car.

According to police, Gordnick was in the house, although not in the room, when the shotgun went off and killed Christofi. He said he entered the room and a naked Williams ran up to him with his blood-stained clothes and asked him to take them away.

This was not Gordnick's first brush with the law. He was arrested in 2007 for running an illegal gambling ring, pleaded guilty and received probation in that case.

Williams was convicted of covering up the shooting but acquitted of aggravated manslaughter. During a retrial, the former New Jersey Nets player pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and was sentenced to five years.

In the past several years, Williams took a solid NBA career, great salary, and a promising television analyst's gig and threw it all away in a cloud of criminal misdeeds that include the fatal shooting of Christofi, abuse allegations from his wife, drunk driving charges, a bar fight and a Tasering incident with New York police.