COOK COUNTY CRIMINAL COURTHOUSE — A Chicago man jailed in Oklahoma while playing basketball for Oklahoma State University, is in trouble again, charged with not properly registering as a sex offender after being arrested for public urination, according to court records.
Darrell Williams' 2012 Oklahoma case drew national attention, and resulted in protests in Stillwater, Okla., including protests led by the Rev. Jesse Jackson. He was ultimately convicted of sexual assault, but a judge suspended his sentence and he was released.
Williams insisted police charged the wrong man in the case.
He returned to Chicago, and on Feb. 13 he was arrested near his South Side home, allegedly for relieving himself in an alley. He's been in jail ever since after police checked his background and charged him with not properly registering as a sex offender, according to a police report.
He is being held on $250,000 bail.
In a motion filed Friday, his attorney, Rusty O'Kane, argued Williams' bail amount is "oppressive" and that the sexual assault case that left him labeled a sex offender remains the subject of much scrutiny.
Williams, now 24, left Chicago for Oklahoma State in 2010 to escape street violence and avoid the fate of his brother, shot in the back of the head a year earlier, according to report in the Sun-Times.
He had been at Oklahoma State, playing forward for Cowboys, for little more than a year when he was arrested and charged with sexually assaulting two women at a college party in December 2010.
Williams maintains his innocence, according to the motion. He claimed he'd been mistaken for another basketball player and passed multiple lie detector tests administered by authorities in Oklahoma, according to the motion.
Williams is still seeking a new trial in the Oklahoma case.
