Grieving Father Calls Out NY “Machine Judge” for Offering Son’s Killer Bail
By: Ilana Siyance
The grieving father of 20-year-old Indiana man shot by a stray bullet during a visit to New York City, spoke out Sunday blaming the “machine judge” for giving the suspect the option of bail.
Ethan Williams, 20, was fatally shot while sitting on the stoop of a vacation rental in Bushwick, Brooklyn with friends on Oct. 23, 2020. As reported by the NY Post, last week, William Freeman was finally arrested in connection to this killing. The suspect told investigators that he opened fire because he made a mistake thinking that one of Williams’ friends was a rival gang member, who had killed his cousin, officials said. He allegedly fired several shots at the group, to scare them as he put it– striking the Indiana University student in the chest. Freeman,26, already has a lively criminal history—with nine prior arrests, including for drugs, assault and petty larceny dating back to 2013. This, however, didn’t stop Brooklyn Criminal Court judge Leigh Cheng from granting the suspect the option of $350,000 bail, despite objections from prosecutors in the case.
Ethan’s father, Jason Williams, spoke out on Sunday, appearing on “Fox and Friends” to talk about the court case. “Total shock, unbelievable. It felt as an act of malice to hear that a judge would grant bail to someone who had just previously within the day or two before confessed to murdering my child,” Williams said. “I’ve learned that some of these judges are called machine judges. In other words, they have some political connection to someone else who can get them on the ballot,” he added.
“This judge received over 99% of the vote because it’s New York City and it’s a Democratic city. Yet, he’s letting murderers walk free on the streets. This murderer’s been free for two years, and he gave him another chance,” said the father. Mr Williams added that he and his family are “very optimistic” that Freeman wouldn’t be able to afford the bail or $600,000 partially-secured bond but said that it’s still “scary” that he was given the opportunity. “I don’t know that he has the money to make the bail, but apparentlyall of the buzz about killers being released to walk your streets freely in New York are true. Unbelievable,” Williams said after the hearing in Brooklyn Criminal Court.
Ethan Williams was an Indiana University sophomore when his future got cut short. He was visiting Brooklyn with friends to film skateboarding videos for the school’s media program, when he was fatally shot, some two years ago. His father said in the interview, that Ethan had dreamed of visiting NYC since he was a kid, having been a fan of the movie “Spider-Man”.
As per the Post, on Friday, at Freeman’s arraignment, Judge Cheng explained to Brooklyn Assistant District Attorney Jordan Rossman why he offered the suspect a path out of jail despite the two counts of murder and criminal possession of a weapon which he was charged with. “Obviously you requested remand, and I determined for a variety of reasons, obviously, the charges are very serious, however, I do believe some amount of bail is appropriate here,” the judge said in court on Friday.
