ST. LOUIS — Jeffrey Boyd, the powerful alderman sent to federal prison for taking bribes and committing insurance fraud, is out now, and he’s unrepentant.
In his first interviews since completing his sentence earlier this month, Boyd presented his version of the events that led to his downfall. He blasted the investigation that ended his nearly two decades in politics, claiming law enforcement targeted him, exaggerated his wrongdoing and had an informant coerce him into accepting handfuls of cash.
He said he never asked for a bribe and, in his mind, never took one — even though investigators had footage of Boyd accepting cash. When pressed, he conceded he made mistakes but said they were only mistakes because the government said they were.
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“I’m not a criminal,†he said. “Did I commit a crime? Yeah, based on what they say. But that wasn’t who I was, and that’s not who I am, and who I would never be.â€
Boyd said he found peace in prison by reading inspirational books and exercising. He even said he’d had a good run in politics and was glad to be done.
But Boyd, 60, was also angry — at FBI agents, federal prosecutors, the media and even old political rivals. And he grappled with his stunning fall from grace.
In less than a year after his indictment, Boyd plummeted from a powerful perch atop the aldermanic committee on development to a crowded courtroom to a prison camp in Texarkana, Texas.
A year and a half later, he was eager to litigate the finer points of what did and didn’t happen.
Hal Goldsmith, the assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted the case, dismissed as ludicrous the idea that Boyd was somehow railroaded or pressured into taking a bribe.
“He pleaded guilty to the charges,†said Goldsmith. “It was a lengthy scheme. He accepted any number of cash offers and other things of value, and in exchange, he took multiple official actions in favor of the businessman that was paying him. And as far as the entrapment, he never did anything but readily accept the things that were offered him beginning on July 25 of 2020, when he accepted $2,500 from a total stranger.â€
‘Stuff I don’t remember’
Federal prosecutors laid out the case against Boyd in June 2022, when they indicted him, former Aldermanic President Lewis Reed and former Alderman John Collins-Muhammad on charges they took bribes from a small-business owner in exchange for help securing tax breaks and a discount price on a city-owned property.
Prosecutors said Boyd first met with the business owner-turned-informant, Mohammed Almuttan, at Boyd’s north ºüÀêÊÓƵ banquet hall in July 2020: Boyd said he would help Almuttan buy the city-owned property for a discount and accepted $2,500 in cash for doing so. Boyd lobbied city staff to sell Almuttan the land for $14,000 — after Boyd said it could be worth $100,000 or more, according to the indictment. He helped secure a tax break for the property.
And he collected more than $9,000 in cash payments and more than $1,000 in complimentary car repairs.
Investigators also caught Boyd offering to help Almuttan get a fraudulent insurance payout on three cars damaged at Almuttan’s used car lot in Jennings.
Boyd pleaded guilty to all charges. At sentencing in December 2022, he sounded remorseful notes.
“The facts are, your honor, I screwed up. I screwed up badly,†he told the judge.
But in interviews with the Post-Dispatch after his release, he tried to explain away much of his wrongdoing.
He said he felt targeted by an investigation that never should have happened.
“What the (expletive) did I do, that they needed to even do that to me?†he asked.
Documents lay that out: Almuttan, under indictment on drug trafficking charges, told investigators that Collins-Muhammad took bribes from a business associate. The FBI had Almuttan meet with Collins-Muhammad and ask for favors with a development project, which Collins-Muhammad granted in exchange for bribes.
Then, on July 25, 2020, Collins-Muhammad introduced Almuttan to Boyd.
Boyd said he was happy to help Almuttan buy city land for cheap and accepted $2,500 cash without hesitation, Almuttan and Collins-Muhammad later said in a taped conversation.
But Boyd told the Post-Dispatch he doesn’t remember taking the money at that meeting. He said prosecutors have never provided him with photographic, audio or video evidence of it.
And he said that proves an important point: Almuttan, at the FBI’s direction, had to push it on Boyd.
That, Boyd said, is coercion.
Boyd, however, said he had trouble recalling other details of the July 25 meeting that were also clearly documented on audio recordings, including the fact that Collins-Muhammad was part of the conversation about buying the city land or how he himself described the property Almuttan wanted to buy.
“I have (post-traumatic stress disorder),†he said, referring to an injury he received in the U.S. Army in 1982, when he was 18. “There’s stuff I don’t remember.â€
‘I was out of my mind’
He also told the Post-Dispatch that other payments he was caught on tape taking shouldn’t count, either — because he never asked for the money.
“I kept saying no,†he said. “I kept saying, ‘Trust me, it’s OK, I don’t need it.’â€
When pressed, he acknowledged he could have simply walked away from the offer. Then he offered other explanations.
First: “In certain cultures, if they keep trying to be kind to you and you don’t accept it, then you are disrespecting them.â€
Then: “I was out of my mind at that time.â€
Later: “I did not understand I was taking a bribe, don’t you understand? ... There was never a conversation about a quid pro quo.â€
Finally, he said, “You’re not being sensitive to the fact that I’m not thinking rational. I’m just trying to help somebody help my community. ... You think this person’s been a friend to you. Never in a million years did I think the government was setting me up with a bribery scheme.â€
Near the end of one conversation, Boyd said that if he were in the same situation with Almuttan today, he wouldn’t take the money. He knows it’s wrong now.
But why?
“Because the government says it is.â€
And frankly, he asked, what’s the difference between what he did and politicians accepting campaign contributions from special interests?
“Money on the table vs. under the table,†he said. “At the end of the day, it’s the same thing.â€
Still, now Boyd said he’s looking to the future. He is happy to be free of the more trying responsibilities of an alderman, such as breaking up squabbles between neighbors. Once, he said, a constituent asked him to bring him a pack of cigarettes.
At 60, he said, he is drawing his Army pension and city pension.
And he said he will keep busy running the banquet hall, on Martin Luther King Drive.
“At the end of the day,†he said, “I’m not who the (Department of Justice) portrays me to be. That is not me. And it will never define who I am.â€