Greedy Brooklyn Assemblyman William Boyland Jr., whom jurors heard grouse, “How the hell are you gonna live off of that?” about his $79,500-a-year salary, was convicted Thursday of corruption and immediately hauled off to jail.
The self-styled political “don” buried his head in his hands and wiped away a tear after being found guilty of 21 counts, including soliciting bribes from undercover agents.
In a surprise move, federal Judge Sandra Townes immediately dispatched the shocked political scion, first elected in 2003, to prison after the verdict, citing his texting to a witness during the trial and his history of lying about his whereabouts.
She also revealed that he had been driving on a suspended license during the trial.
Facing up to 30 years behind bars, the dazed Boyland, 43, didn’t even turn to his supporters, including his crushed mother and father, before meekly vanishing into custody.
After less than two days of deliberation, jurors found that he repeatedly and brazenly made payoff requests to a couple of undercover agents who told him they wanted to hasten development deals in his central-Brooklyn district.
“I mean, we make $79,500 as an Assembly member,” jurors heard him on tape whine to an undercover agent in Keens Steakhouse in Manhattan in 2011.
“What the hell. That’s maybe my son’s tuition and maybe I pay for some gas, you know?
“How the hell are you gonna live off of that?” asked Boyland, whose sister Tracy Boyland was a city councilwoman and whose father, William Sr., served two decades in the Assembly after replacing his own brother Thomas in the seat.
Jurors also found him guilty of lying about legislative work in Albany to steal more than $70,000 in unearned per-diem payments and for steering nonprofit funds to his campaign coffers.
“For the last four weeks, we have been treated to a spectacle of arrogance and entitlement that has been both truly breathtaking and also profoundly sad,” said US Attorney Loretta Lynch after the verdict.
Prosecutors hammered away at Boyland as a brazen payola fiend during the monthlong trial and leaned heavily on the testimony of his former lover and chief of staff, Ry-Ann Hermon, who eagerly buried him on the stand.
Infamously caught on tape telling an agent that the bribe he handed her made her “hot,” Hermon blasted her former boss and beau as a reckless and inept politician who sought cash in exchange for political favors.
She was arrested along with Boyland and quickly copped a plea in exchange for skewering him in testimony.
During one drive through Brooklyn with an undercover, Boyland, who had turned down a plea deal for nine years behind bars, characterized his Assembly district as a personal fiefdom.
“Everything you’ve seen — I’m in control of,” he boasted on tape.
“I’m the politician.”