Apr 19, 2006 8:50 pm US/Central
Boat Party Waitresses Testify Against Williams
Minneapolis (AP) ―
-
-
Former Minnesota Viking Moe Williams appeared in court Tuesday as jury selection began for his trial.
CBS
Two women working as waitresses the night of an infamous Vikings boat party testified in court Wednesday that they saw former Vikings running back Moe Williams rubbing up against a scantily clad woman and touching her breasts.
Prosecutor Steve Tallen said the alleged conduct was criminal because the women who witnessed it were offended and because it happened near a public bathroom where people came and went during the night.
Tallen said the encounter was "in a public place where other people can see, and that's not OK."
Defense lawyer Joe Friedberg acknowledged that Williams received a close dance from the woman but said it was in an area of the boat where there were few people -- away from a party on the deck. He told the jurors the conduct was not against the law.
"Mr. Williams was having a good time with a woman who was 100 percent consenting," Friedberg said.
Williams, 32, is the first player to be tried in the case, on charges of indecent conduct, disorderly conduct and lewd or lascivious behavior. Two other Vikings, tackle Bryant McKinnie and cornerback Fred Smoot, face the same charges and are slated to go on trial in May. Charges against former quarterback Daunte Culpepper were dropped.
The prosecution presented its entire case Wednesday. Williams, who sat quietly in a dark suit throughout, didn't testify and the defense called no witnesses. The jury was scheduled to hear closing arguments Thursday.
In his opening statement, Tallen said jurors would learn that the cruise on Lake Minnetonka "basically became a floating orgy."
The prosecution's key witnesses, Jamie Lyons and Erika Chepokas, were working as waitresses on the "Avanti" -- a boat owned by Al & Alma's Restaurant and Cruises -- Oct. 6 when Vikings rookies took the veterans out for a cruise.
Lyons and Chepokas described women carrying bags aboard the boat with team members, then quickly changing into thongs and scanty tops. Lyons and Chepokas said the women began giving lap dances to men on the boat, and eventually some of them took off all of their clothes.
"After we left the dock, it turned into a strip club," Lyons said.
The women each said they came across Williams and a woman who were together in a tight space in the lower part of the boat, near a bathroom. Both said Williams was touching the woman, including on her breasts.
"I wish I hadn't," Lyons said when Tallen asked for her reaction to seeing Williams and the woman dancing with him. "I had to be so close to it that that was the worst thing about it."
Friedberg said Williams spent most of the night in the boat's bar area, drinking cranberry vodkas. In cross-examining Lyons, he also noted that she didn't mention any incident involving Williams in notes she wrote about the night so that she would remember what had happened.
"What I am suggesting," he said, "is that the things that made you feel uncomfortable and the things you wrote about were the things you saw happening upstairs," meaning on the deck.
The scandal was the lowest point in a dismal season for the Vikings, who lost Culpepper to a serious knee injury soon afterward. He was traded to Miami for a second-round pick after his relationship with the team and new head coach Brad Childress deteriorated in the offseason.
Williams, a free agent after 10 years in the league, missed the last half of the season with a knee injury. The Vikings don't plan to re-sign him, and Friedberg described him in court Wednesday as "retired."
-------
According to the Lake Minnetonka Area Chamber of Commerce, Lake Minnetonka has 125 miles of shoreline and reaches depths of up to 113 feet.
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)