3 Former St. Louis Aldermen Sentenced on Federal Bribery Charges

Over the course of four hours Tuesday afternoon, three former city political leaders were sentenced to more than a combined decade in prison.

Former President of the Board of Aldermen Lewis Reed and former Alderman John Collins-Muhammad must each serve 45 months in prison. Former Alderman Jeffrey Boyd received a 36-month sentence. All three resigned from their positions earlier this year following their indictments for accepting bribes in exchange for promises to help local businessman Mohammed Almuttan secure tax abatements on property he owned.

In addition to the bribery surrounding the tax abatement, Reed and Collins-Muhammad also accepted money from Almuttan in exchange for attempting to help the businessman secure city trucking contracts. Boyd also engaged in attempted insurance fraud with vehicles that belonged to Almuttan.

Each man was also fined. Reed was fined $18,500 which approximates the value of the bribes Reed accepted. Boyd, however, was fined $23,688, twice the value of the bribes he accepted. Collins-Muhammad was fined $19,500 on two bribery-related charges.

In sentencing all three men, Judge Stephen Clark stressed the difference between statesmen and politicians, saying that statesmen experience the "stress of soul" that comes with the responsibility of their elected office. Judge Clark indicated that the three men failed to live up to the title of statesmen, and that they went about their corruption as if it were the "accepted, uneventful" way of doing business in St. Louis city.
The three sentences handed down by Judge Clark were all very near the highest end of the federal guidelines for the crimes to which the men had pleaded guilty.

Reed, 60, was the last of the three to be sentenced. When the 45-month sentence was announced, it led to many audible gasps and to people running out of the courtroom.

Prior to his sentencing, Reed had a chance to lobby the judge on his own behalf for leniency. He cited a long list of what the city had accomplished during his 15 years as president of the Board of Aldermen. In a statement that at times felt like a subdued campaign speech, Reed touted development on Washington Avenue, laying the groundwork for the new St. Louis Major League Soccer team and the re-accreditation of St. Louis Public Schools.

Reed's attorney Scott Rosenblum spoke in court about Reed's hardscrabble background, his getting kicked out of his own home by his mother as a youth and later having to sleep in his car. Rosenblum noted that Reed had persevered through a great deal to become the second most powerful elected leader in the city.

When it was his turn to address the judge, federal prosecutor Hal Goldsmith said that it was exactly Reed's position of power, second in the city only to the mayor, that made Reed's betrayal of public trust so damaging to faith in government writ large.


All told, Reed pleaded guilty to taking $6,000 in cash and $3,500 in campaign contributions to help Almuttan’s business secure trucking contracts and get Minority Business Enterprise certification. For the property tax abatement scheme that included Collins-Muhammad, Reed took $9,000 in bribes.

Reed was allowed to leave the courtroom free on bond prior to having to report to the Bureau of Prisons to serve his sentence. In addition to the 45-month sentence and fine, he will have to serve three years supervised release after serving his time.

As Rosenblum and Reed left the courtroom, Rosenblum spoke briefly to reporters saying that he predicted Reed would "rise like a phoenix from the ashes and do better things in the city."

Reed's sentencing came on the heels of the sentencing of his co-defendants Collins-Muhammad and Boyd.

Collins-Muhammad, 30, who was the first of the three to be sentenced, will also have to serve 45 months in federal prison.

In arguing for a more lenient sentence, Collins-Muhammad’s attorney Joseph Flees said to the judge that his client was, “a political novice compared to his co-defendants” Boyd and Reed, who have both been in politics for decades.

Flees went on to describe Collins-Muhammad as a young man in “a position of power and responsibility without the maturity to handle it.”

However, Goldsmith countered that it was Collins-Muhammad who introduced Reed and Boyd to Almuttan in the first place.


Goldsmith also stressed that Collins-Muhammad had acted duplicitously. According to Goldsmith, Collins-Muhammad took bribes from businessman Mohammed Almuttan, promising to win him a tax abatement on a property where Almuttan hoped to build a gas station, while at the same time Collins-Muhammad was assuring residents of his own ward that such a gas station, which residents saw as a magnet for crime, would never get built.

“He was playing both sides,” Goldsmith said.

Collins-Muhammad pleaded guilty to accepting $13,500 in cash and $3,000 in campaign contributions. He also got a Volkswagen CC sedan and an Apple iPhone 11 from Almuttan for his help with tax abatements.

Like Reed, Collins-Muhammad will remain free on bond before reporting to the Bureau of Prisons to serve his sentence.

After Collins-Muhammad came Jeffrey Boyd, 58, former alderman for the 22nd Ward. He pleaded guilty to accepting $9,500 and another $2,300 in car repairs from Almuttan in exchange for helping Almuttan secure a tax abatement as well as to support the businessman getting a 90 percent discount on a piece of commercial property owned by the city that Boyd said was worth $100,000.

Boyd additionally engaged in what Goldsmith called an audacious act of insurance fraud in which cars on Almuttan's property were damaged and Boyd falsified documents to try to make it look like he owned the cars and had insurance policies on them prior to them being damaged.

In his own request for leniency, Boyd spoke about his military service, having joined the armed forces in 1982. He said he was assaulted early in his service and suffers from PTSD to this day. He asked the judge for probation so that he could continue to get the help he needs from the Veterans Administration.


Of the three, Boyd's bribe involved the smallest amount of money, resulting in a lesser sentence than his co-defendants, one of 36 months. His fine, however, was the highest.

Boyd, too, was allowed to leave the courtroom on bond prior to beginning his sentence.

At several points throughout the day, Judge Clark used the three men's own words against them.

Early in the afternoon, Judge Clark reminded Collins-Muhammad of an interview he did in 2017, upon first getting elected to public office at only 25 years old. The student interviewing the newly elected alderman pleaded with him to be a servant rather than a sell out. Collins-Muhammad replied that he had to keep the trust of the people whose doors he’d knocked on, whose homes he'd been invited into during his campaign.

Later on, in Reed's sentencing, Judge Clark reminded the former president of the Board of Aldermen that he had once lobbed accusations at then-Mayor Francis Slay for participating in pay-to-play politics, the very crime Reed will soon be serving time for.

In all three cases, Judge Clark expressed alarm at the "cool, calculated" way in which all three men accepted bribery money and then later, just as easily, pushed legislation motivated by that money through the Board of Aldermen.

In response to Tuesday’s sentencing, Mayor Tishaura Jones released a statement saying, "Today, a federal court held Jeffrey Boyd, John Collins-Muhammad, and Lewis Reed accountable for the pain they have caused our communities. These crimes have victims: Their families, who are suffering; their constituents, whose interests they put aside in pursuit of personal profit; and our entire city, which was shaken by the brazenness of the trio’s corruption.

"City agencies have already taken steps to reform past practices and increase transparency in development work to help prevent abuse in the future. [The Land Reutilization Authority, which sold Almuttan property at cut-rate prices on Boyd's recommendation] halted sales for the remainder of the year while it addressed its internal procedures, and [St. Louis Development Corporation] is creating a development scorecard for incentives to make this process more clear to the public.

"We have more work to do. In electing [Board of Aldermen] President Megan Green, St. Louisans have emphasized the need to break from the past, which includes reforming our development incentive process to make it more community-driven, transparent, and free of conflicts of interest. I look forward to working with her, the full board, and Comptroller Green to restore trust and integrity to city government."

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