William Frank Boyland Jr. is a former New York State Assemblyman who represented District 55, which comprises Ocean Hill, Brownsville, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Crown Heights and Bushwick. He forfeited his seat in the Assembly on March 6, 2014 due to his conviction on numerous federal felony charges related to extortion, bribery, and official corruption. Chosen to represent his district in a special election held in 2003, he served as a member of several standing committees in the lower legislative body of the New York State Legislature, including the Committee on Aging, the Committee on Cities, the Committee on Economic Development, and the Committee on Job Creation, among others.
Biography
Boyland came from a family of Brooklyn politicians. His father, William F. Boyland, occupied a seat in the New York State Assembly for two decades, while his uncle, Thomas S. Boyland, was a member of the Assembly from 1977 to 1982. His sister, Tracy L. Boyland, was the Chairwoman of the Women's Issues Committee on the New York City Council. His wife Kamaria Alfattan was the district leader of Bedstuy. On December 20, 2002 he had a son William Boyland 3 Prior to his election to the Assembly, Boyland served as an intern in the offices of several United States Congressmen, including those of fellow Brooklynites Edolphus Towns and Major Owens.
Corruption
On March 10, 2011, Boyland was among eight individuals, including Carl Kruger, another New York State Assemblyman, who surrendered to face charges in a federal corruption case accusing the lawmakers of taking bribes over the course of a decade. On November 10, 2011, Boyland was acquitted of those charges. However, before the end of the month, he was arrested again on separate federal bribery charges, with prosecutors claiming to have secretly recorded him soliciting $250,000 in bribes even while the first set of charges were still unresolved. His chief of staff, Ry-Ann Hermon, was also arrested on related charges, and eventually pleaded guilty. Boyland was charged with three additional counts of mail fraud on March 18, 2013 for falsely securing tens of thousands of dollars in travel reimbursements, and several weeks later another fraud charge was added for steering taxpayer money to a nonprofit agency and directing that agency to reimburse him for other expenses. On May 14, 2013, Boyland pleaded not guilty. The second trial ended in his conviction on all 21 felony counts he faced, including extortion, bribery, and mail fraud. Upon conviction, Boyland immediately lost his seat in the Assembly. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison, taken into custody at his sentencing, and ordered to pay more than $155,000 in public money he was determined to have misused or stolen. As of August 2016, he was serving his sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution, Loretto, a low- security federal prison in Western Pennsylvania. Of the numerous New York politicians convicted of various forms of official corruption in recent years, Boyland's sentence is the longest to date, topping former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver's second-place 12 year sentence.
