N.Y. Lawmaker Boyland Faces New Bribery Allegations After Beating Corruption Charges

New York State Assembly Member William Boyland, who recently beat federal corruption charges, was arrested on Tuesday on more charges. He's now accused of accepting kickbacks from undercover FBI agents and a carnival promoter.

The lawmaker faces a new round of corruption charges after he was acquitted on Nov. 10 of trading his clout in the state capitol for a $175,000 no-show consulting job at a health-care company.

The new charges from the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn accuse Boyland of soliciting more than $260,000 in bribes from FBI agents posing as businessmen interested in real estate development projects.

Boyland, a 41-year-old scion of a Brooklyn Democratic political family, is also accused of taking money from a cooperating witness' carnival promotion business.

The defendant had a strong political legacy, the trust of his community, and the privilege of serving it, U.S. Attorney Loretta E. Lynch said in a statement. Not content with these many benefits, the defendant is alleged to have auctioned the power of his seat in the Assembly to the highest bidder, for his own personal gain and to the potential detriment of the voters who elected him to office.

Boyland's meetings with the FBI agents and the cooperating witness were recorded. On April 29, Boyland allegedly met with the two phony businessmen in Atlantic City, N.J., to discuss a hospital buy-back scheme, according to an FBI agent's affidavit.

The scheme involved the two businessmen buying a hospital from a bank for $8 million and selling it to a nonprofit Boyland controlled for $15 million. Boyland, having already been indicted by federal prosecutors in Manhattan, asked for help with his legal bills for facilitating the project.

I have a good attorney, I just can't pay him, Boyland said, according to the affidavit.

When one of the agents at a June meeting in a Manhattan hotel room bristled at paying Boyland $250,000 upfront without seeing any progress on the project, Boyland allegedly said, Right now my biggest lift is the legal fees....That's what I need help with right now.

Boyland is also accused of accepting more than $14,000 in cash bribes. In March, Boyland and one of his staff members contacted one of the FBI agents for a $7,000 payment to cover his legal fees, indicating that the lawmaker could travel to Philadelphia for the cash.

The agent then traveled to Boyland's district office to give him money to secure state-grant funding for proposed development projects. Later, while showing the two agents property in his district, Boyland allegedly said that necessary zoning changes were not a problem.

Boyland took another $7,000 bribe from a carnival promoter, acting as a cooperating witness, in exchange for having grants and permits secured for bringing carnivals to Brooklyn.

74174781 Boyland Complaint