SOMERVILLE, N.J. — A veteran court clerk was removed from Jayson Williams' trial Tuesday for being too friendly to the basketball player's defense.

Court officials transferred clerk Sue Gibbons, who had been seen hugging Williams and members of his legal team in a courthouse hall, to another trial after a prosecutor complained about her conduct.

Gibbons, longtime clerk to Superior Court Judge Edward Coleman, appeared stunned and angry. She left the court in tears after being informed of the decision at a mid-morning break.

"I'm out of here," she said to attorneys as she stomped out a side door carrying her purse and coat.

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Williams later tried to comfort the distraught clerk in the hall outside Coleman's courtroom. The athlete rubbed her shoulder as his wife, Tanya, who is nearly nine months pregnant, embraced her.

During the eight weeks of trial, Gibbons' duties mainly were marking exhibits, swearing in witnesses and monitoring the behavior of spectators. She was best known for telling people not to chew gum in court.

Jurors do not walk in the hall where Gibbons was spotted with the defense team, but lead prosecutor Steven Lember went to Coleman Monday night to express concerns about her impartiality.

Coleman said he talked to his clerk and she had agreed to avoid any appearance of impropriety. Subsequently, the judge told lawyers at a sidebar conference Tuesday morning, court officials learned of the complaint and reassigned her.

The judge defended his clerk to the lawyers, even offering her ethnic heritage as an explanation.

"For the record, the clerk is Italian origin, and has been very friendly, as has been her history, to be very friendly and kid with the attorneys involved in most litigations," Coleman said, according to a transcript released Tuesday night.

Her dismissal set off a bitter argument between Lember and defense attorney Billy Martin, who insisted the clerk had done nothing wrong.

"It's not right to ruin people's lives," Lember quoted the defense attorney as saying shortly after Gibbons left.

Although Gibbons is white, Martin used the clerk's dismissal to revive charges of racism against the prosecutor. Martin, who is black, said he felt other clerks in the past had slighted him by only addressing questions to his white co-counsel, Joseph Hayden Jr. In those instances, he said, Lember had not objected. He then reminded the judge that the defense felt Lember, who is white, had systematically excluded black men from the jury.

An exasperated Lember, according to the transcript, said, "How that apple had anything to do with this orange conversation is absolutely beyond me."

Four of the 16 jurors are black women. Williams' father is black and his mother is white.

He faces 55 years in prison if convicted of aggravated manslaughter and other charges stemming from the shooting of driver Costas "Gus" Christofi at his mansion Feb. 14, 2002.