Everwood alum Williams first played Lenny Ross, a former NYPD detective and police commissioner Frank Reagan’s old partner, in Season 6’s “Back in the Day.” Most recently, in his sixth Blue Bloods guest spot, he appeared in last season’s “Irish Exits”; there, Lenny revealed to Frank that he was dying of cancer related to his being one of the first responders at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

Williams died a month after that episode aired, following a motorcycle accident at the age of 71.
Blue Bloods will pay tribute to both Williams and Lenny with Friday’s episode “Fear No Evil,” in which Frank grapples with the personal loss of his best friend and how best to help Lenny’s daughter Tess (returning guest star Simone Policano) when she lands in jail.
Elsewhere in the hour, Jaime and Joe race against the clock to reunite a trafficking victim with her sister; and Danny and Erin clash when she goes behind Danny’s back to use his criminal informant in an investigation.

Williams died last June 12 when a car cut him off as he was making a turn on his motorcycle. Ryan Koss, the man who was driving the car in the accident, was charged nearly two months later with “grossly negligent operation with death resulting,” according to the Vermont State Police. Koss voluntarily turned himself into authorities and pled not guilty.

But in exchange for switching to a guilty plea (to the misdemeanor of negligent operation with death resulting), Koss could receive a deferred sentence — meaning, if he stays out of trouble for a year, the charge will be expunged from his record.

A judge has yet to sign off on that agreement, and a hearing is scheduled for March, Vermont’s WCAX reported.