Jailed basketball star Jayson Williams has transformed himself into a churchgoing mentor to other prisoners at Rikers Island — earning him the nickname “The Moses of Rikers.”
Christopher Hughes, who was incarcerated at Rikers for 100 days with the former New Jersey Net, tells us the baller is beloved by all behind bars with him, from crackheads to gangbangers.
“People treat him like a star,” said Hughes, who was released from Rikers last week after serving time for reckless assault. “Every single person shakes his hand. He is like Moses, the Moses of Rikers.”
He described how Williams, 43, attends church and leads Bible-study classes every day.
“Jayson would sign people’s Bibles,” Hughes told us. “I would ask him why, and he’d say, ‘Fake it till you make it.’ I thought he was saying, ‘If I can get them in the door through this signature, then at least I got them in the room to see Christ.’ ”
Williams worked as a suicide-prevention assistant for a week on the midnight shift, to help inmates who were contemplating killing themselves, Hughes told us.
Jayson, also a former Philadelphia 76er, who receives “tons” of mail and spends four hours a day writing back, is also penning a second book, “Humbled,” which includes the bombshell that he was sexually abused as a child.
“It’s raw,” said Hughes, who read excerpts while in prison.
Williams works out daily, but Hughes said he reluctantly plays basketball to cheer up inmates: “People would scream out the windows, ‘Jay, dunk it, man! Dunk it!’ He’d have to dunk once a day!”
Williams’ manager, Akhtar Farzaie, confirmed Hughes’ account.
Williams is completing a one-year sentence for DWI, after serving an 18-month term in a New Jersey prison for aggravated assault. He accidentally shot and killed a limo driver in 2002 at his New Jersey mansion.