Metro

Boyland blames salary for payola scheme caught on tape

Brooklyn Assemblyman William Boyland Jr. groused that his intolerably puny salary all but forced him to pursue payola, according to a surveillance recording played at his corruption trial in Brooklyn federal court Wednesday.

“I mean, we make $79,500 as an Assembly member,” he whined to an undercover agent posing as a businessman during a 2011 meeting at Keens Steakhouse in Manhattan.

“What the hell. That’s maybe my son’s tuition and maybe I pay for some gas, you know?” the pol said before letting out a guffaw.

“Yeah. In this city?” responded the agent.

“Right,” Boyland said. “How the hell are you gonna live off of that?”

Prosecutors allege that Boyland sought to put some beef on his bony earnings by offering political influence to what he thought were local businessmen in exchange for bribes.

He solicited money from undercovers to secure permits for lucrative carnivals and for easy access to properties that could be profitably developed, according to the feds.

Boyland, 43, initially asked a fake carnival promoter for a quick grand to help fund a proposed gospel event in his district, the undercover agent testified Wednesday.

But the requests for cash kept swelling until the undercover was finally asked to cough up $3,000 to finance a dubious bus trip to Albany, according to his testimony.

The agent eventually trekked to Boyland’s Brownsville district office to give him the dough — but was quietly ushered outside by the assemblyman’s father, former Brooklyn political power William Boyland Sr.

In an exchange caught on the agent’s hidden camera, the elder Boyland makes an unseemly cameo.

“Now what does he want?” the agent asks Boyland Sr. about his son.

“I mean, how far can you go?” Boyland Sr. replies.

After settling on the $3,000, the father offers a warning. “All right,” he said. “Just legally, you know, this is against the law, right?”

Boyland Sr. is named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the case against his son.

The carnival promoter testified that he later wrote a letter purporting to be from Boyland Jr. that the politician signed and submitted to state officials on his behalf. “I know that you will look favorably on this application and grant your approval,” the letter read.

The cocky assemblyman — who beat a prior federal corruption rap in 2011 — later told the agent that he has suddenly become irresistible to women after his divorce.

After shuffling through a barrage of texts, Boyland Jr. said “there must have been a memo that went out that I’m not married anymore.”

Boyland eventually hooked up with his chief of staff, Ry-Ann Hermon. She pleaded guilty to taking part in the alleged corruption and is slated to testify against her ex-beau and former boss.

Boyland faces 30 years in prison if convicted.