Two men charged with gunning down Run-DMC’s Jam Master Jay in New York City more than 20 years ago were convicted Tuesday of the hip-hop icon’s long-unsolved slaying.
Ronald Washington, 59, and Karl Jordan Jr., 40, were found guilty by a Brooklyn federal jury of murdering the 37-year-old Jason Mizell inside his Queens music studio in what prosecutors said was a crime “motivated by greed and revenge.”
Washington, Mizell’s childhood friend, and Jordan, his godson, each face between 20 years-to-life behind bars at their sentencing.
The verdict followed a four-week trial in which jurors heard from several witnesses who recounted the moment the pair killed the legendary DJ inside his cramped 24/7 Studio in Hollis on Oct. 30, 2002.
It finally brings an end to the mystery surrounding Mizell’s shooting death, which went unsolved for decades.
Throughout the trial, prosecutors painted the killing as a revenge plot by Washington and Jordan after the pair were stiffed in a drug deal in Baltimore just months earlier.
“It was an ambush. An execution,” Assistant US Attorney Miranda Gonzalez told jurors, adding that the slaying was “motivated by greed and revenge.”
Jurors heard testimony from several witnesses who were inside Mizell’s studio at 7:30 p.m. on the night he was killed — including Uriel “Tony” Rincon, who identified Jordan as the shooter for the first time after more than two decades of silence.
“I heard a couple of shots,” Rincon said. “I see Jay fall because his back was to me at the time. As Jay was falling, I saw Jordan shrug him off of him.”
Rincon was playing the “Madden” football video game with Mizell at the studio when the two were ambushed. He suffered a gunshot wound to his left leg from Jordan, also known as “Little D,” during the fracas.
Lydia High, a lifelong friend of Mizell, broke down in tears several times when she was on the witness stand.
High testified about how she went to the studio that night because she needed Mizell to finalize some paperwork after landing a major record deal for one of his artists at JMJ Records, a label founded by Mizell.
“Jason smiled. He smiled and he kind of gave the guy a pound,” High testified while crying on the stand. “And then he, and then he, and then he said, ‘Oh s–t!’”
She accused Washington, also known as “Tinard,” of ordering her to get on the ground while holding a gun to her head after the shooting.
Prosecutors have said that Mizell’s death was the result of a drug-deal gone wrong when he allegedly stiffed both Washington and Jordan from a lucrative cocaine deal in August 2002.
Mizell’s family has long maintained that the musician — known for his anti-drug advocacy as part of the influential hip-hop group — wasn’t involved in drugs.
But prosecutors said that he turned to making cocaine deals when the money from his Run-DMC days started to run out in the mid-1990s.
Ralph Mullgrav, a convicted drug dealer, testified on behalf of prosecutors, telling jurors that Mizell was a small player in the drug world, moving around 1-2 kilos of cocaine “here and there.”
However, Mizell approached him about a larger deal that was coming from the Midwest in the summer before his death — and he wanted Washington on the ground in Baltimore.
Mullgrav, who grew up with both men, told prosecutors that he told Mizell he didn’t want to work with Washington because he didn’t like him.
He later admitted that he was going to “shoot Tinard” during an impromptu visit to Baltimore in Mizell’s car around the time of the deal.
Mizell was looking to push a “few keys” — 10-20 kilograms of cocaine — in the deal that eventually stiffed Washington, according to Mullgrav.
Witnesses often described Mizell as a generous person who supported his friends and family in times of need — even letting Washington sleep on his sister’s couch in the weeks before the murder.