Boyland Convicted On Corruption Charges

Brooklyn Assemblyman William Boyland Jr. was convicted today in federal court of bribery and several other federal crimes.

As reported by the New York Times, Boyland was found guilty on all 21 counts of an indictment that stemmed from four different corrupt schemes in which the assemblyman participated. Several of the counts related to allegations that Boyland solicited and accepted bribes in exchange for helping a cooperating witness, who was posing as a carnival promoter, and an undercover agent set up carnivals in his district. In another machination, Boyland said that he would facilitate a sweetheart real estate deal worth million of dollars in exchange for $250,000 paid through a fake consulting job, a ploy similar to one he was accused of running in a 2011 trial that ended in Boyland being acquitted.

Boyland was also accused of conspiring to steer state money into a nonprofit that he ran for his personal gain.

City & State was the first news outlet to reveal that Boyland was playing games on Facebook during Assembly sessions, and that he submitted false travel vouchers to the Assembly.

Boyland, who succeeded his father, William Boyland Sr. in the Assembly, will now lose his seat, which comprises the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Ocean Hill, Brownsville, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Crown Heights and Bushwick. With the forced vacancy, there are now 12 open seats in the state Legislature—10 in the Assembly and 2 in the Senate.