William James "
Willie" Bosket, Jr. (born
December 9, 1962) is a convicted murderer, whose numerous crimes committed while he was still a minor led to a change in
New York state law , so that juveniles as young as 13 could be tried as an adult for murder and would face the same penalties. He has been in either prison or reformatories for all but
18 months since
1971, and is presently serving a sentence of 82 years to life at
Woodbourne Correctional Facility.
On Sunday, March 19, 1978, Bosket, then fifteen years old, shot and killed
Noel Perez on a train operating on the 3
New York City Subway service during an attempted robbery near the
Harlem --
148th Street terminal station. Eight days later, Bosket and another accomplice shot dead another man, Moises Perez (no relation to his first victim) in another attempted robbery at the back of another 3 train at the
145th Street station, one station south of 148th Street (cornering the victim at the back of a train, as the subway station is the only station in the system that can only board the first half of a subway train).
In between, Bosket and his accomplice shot a
New York City Transit employee working in the
Lenox Terminal yard adjacent to the Harlem -- 148th Street station and committed two other armed robberies, one of them on the A service.[2]
Bosket was tried for the murders in
New York City's family court. As the trial was underway, Bosket surprised his own lawyer by pleading guilty to all three murders. e was sentenced to a maximum of five years in the
Goshen Youth Facility. Although prosecutors tried to get a longer sentence, five years was the most they could get under the law of the time.
The short length of Bosket's sentence caused a huge public outcry.
Governor Hugh Carey had opposed efforts by his opponent in that year's gubernatorial election,
State Assembly Minority Leader Perry Duryea, to have juveniles tried as adults for certain crimes. However, after reading a report on Bosket's sentence,
Carey called the state legislature into special session to pass the
Juvenile Offender Act of 1978. Under this act, children as young as thirteen years old could be tried in an adult court for crimes such as murder, and receive the same penalties as adults.
New York was the first state to enact a law of this nature; all of the other states have since followed suit
.
A year after he began serving his sentence for the three murders, Bosket escaped from the youth facility. He was caught after two hours, tried as an adult for the escape and sentenced to four years in state prison. He was returned to the
Division of Youth in
1979, and was released in
1983. After
100 days he was arrested when a man living in his apartment complex claimed Bosket had robbed and assaulted him. Then while awaiting trial on that crime, Bosket assaulted several court officers. He was found guilty of attempted assault for the dispute in the apartment and sentenced to seven years in prison. While in prison, he got into numerous altercations with prison guards. Indicted for one of those incidents, he was convicted of assault and arson.
At this
point, his
1975 escape from Goshen came back to haunt him. He was 16 years old at the time, meaning he was now an adult for criminal purposes.
In New York, escaping from a correctional facility is a felony, even if the facility is a youth facility. Coupled with the two felony convictions since his 1979 release, this made him a three-time convicted felon, and under
New York's habitual offender law, he was sentenced to 25 years to life.
In
1989, he was sentenced to an additional 25-years-to-life sentence for stabbing a guard at maximum-security
Shawangunk Correctional Facility.[3] After the
1988 assault, Bosket was transferred to Woodbourne Correctional Facility, where in
April 1989 he drew a third 25-years-to-life sentence for assaulting a guard with a chain. All three sentences are consecutive.
Since the 1988 assault, Bosket (
NYSDOCS inmate number 84A6391) has been housed at Woodbourne in solitary confinement. Although Woodbourne is normally a medium-security prison, Bosket is housed in a specially-built plexiglass-lined cell with four video cameras watching him at all times. Due to a past history of swallowing objects, his cell has been stripped of everything except a cot and a toilet. The guards are not allowed to speak to him. He is only allowed out of his cell for one hour a day, and is shackled with a tow chain. Although he is allowed visitors, they must speak to him through a window in his cell. He will not be eligible for parole until 2062--all but assuring he will die in prison.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Bosket
- published: 17 May 2014
- views: 3418