A 24-year-old Queens man was sentenced to 39 years to life in prison Monday for his conviction last month in what a Queens judge called the "attempted execution" last year of a rookie NYPD officer from Long Island.
In a Queens courtroom, Devin Spraggins stood motionless, his hands cuffed behind him as State Supreme Court Judge Kenneth Holder hit him with the near maximum sentence for the wounding in 2023 of NYPD Det. Brett Boller, of Hauppauge, during an incident which started on a bus and spread out onto the street.
Boller, who had graduated from the police academy in December 2022 and was promoted to the rank of detective after the shooting, sat silently in the courtroom with his father, NYPD Inspector Donald Boller, and mother, Leanne, as Holder imposed the sentence, which included additional prison terms of 1 to 15 years for various other crimes in the indictment.
Scores of NYPD officers filled the courtroom, as well as an adjacent overflow room, to listen to the sentencing proceedings.
The defendant did not address the court before sentencing.
Spraggins faced a 40 years to life maximum sentence, although Holder didn’t explain why he reduced his sentence by one year.
Queens Assistant District Attorney Kanella Georgopoulos said the incident could have been much worse but for the fact the magazine fell out of the gun Spraggins used in the April 2023 shooting. That prevented Spraggins from firing additional shots, prosecutors said.
"He tried to shoot a second time at officer Boller," Georgopoulos said. “He wanted to finish him off."
His defense attorney, Michael Horn, said his client had been abused and abandoned in his youth. Horn said the trial was “sad and pointless" but something Spraggins wanted to go through.
Horn said Spraggins grew up in a life marred by "alcohol, abuse and absence."
Horn explained that his client was bipolar, suffered from attention deficit disorder and had been abused by his father. Spraggins has five sisters and one brother, noted Horn, as he asked for Holder to give a sentence of 20 years to life so that Spraggins would have time to turn his life around and get out on parole.
But Holder said, "I really don’t have a lot of faith in the parole board" and said Spraggins "effectively tried to execute" Boller and "didn’t give a damn about his life."
Following the sentencing, Police Benevolent Association president Patrick Hendry said outside the courthouse that Holder's stiff sentence sent a clear message to the city and court system that if an officer is assaulted "you are going to stay behind bars for a long, long time."
Donald Boller who is with the detective borough in Queens South, thanked detectives and prosecutors for making the case. Brett Boller declined to comment on the sentencing.
Donald Boller reiterated this his son is still recovering from his injuries, which prosecutors said required numerous surgeries and the placement of a titanium rod in his hip.
Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said afterward that Holder noted that Spraggins not only tried to get away from Boller and his partner, Anthony Rock, but tried to shoot additional times.
"Had it not been for the fact that the magazine had fallen out, officer Boller would have been dead and we would have been having a very different press conference today," she said.
Holder noted that Rock was so devastated by the shooting that he has left the NYPD.