Photo: Bob Berg/Getty Images
The Brooklyn federal trial against Ronald Washington and Karl Jordan Jr. for the 2002 murder of Run-D.M.C.’s DJ Jam Master Jay started in earnest on Monday, January 29, with the prosecution describing the beloved musician’s grisly death as “an execution.”
“It was motivated by greed and revenge,” prosecutor Miranda Gonzalez told jurors in her 20-minute opening statement.
Gonzalez described to the jury how Jam Master Jay, who’s legal name is Jason Mizell, remained humble despite his prominence as a member of Run-D.M.C.
“Even as Run-D.M.C. rose to fame, you’ll hear that Jason never forgot his roots,” she said. “Jason Mizell was generous with his money.” He even let people stay at his family home or his studio if they fell on hard times.
By the mid-’90s, however, money from Run-D.M.C. started to decline, leading Mizell to pursue other means of income and acting as a middle man for cocaine distributors and dealers.
In August of 2002, Mizell and Washington went to Baltimore for a deal. But the distributor there didn’t want to work with Washington, so Mizell sent him away empty-handed. Jordan, who was hoping to get a piece of the action through Washington, was also left out of the potentially lucrative plan.
On October 30 of that year, the disagreement spiraled into violence. Mizell was in his music studio in Queens, sitting on the sofa playing video games. Mizell had a pistol nearby. “People close to Jason will tell you that in the days leading up to his murder, he seemed different,” Gonzalez said.
At around 7:30 p.m., a man named Jay Bryant walked into the front of the building and then went to the back entrance, where he let in Jordan and Washington. Jordan marched to the studio, and Mizell stood. Jordan pulled out a gun and “put a 40-caliber bullet in his head, killing him in an instant.”
“The bullet burned the hair and skin of his head,” Gonzalez said, pointing out how close Jordan was to Mizell. As the incident unfolded, Washington pointed his firearm at a person in the studio and told this person to lie on the ground. Jordan fired another shot which struck another person in the leg, the prosecution said.
“It was a brazen crime — the defendants had killed a world-famous musician in front of people they knew and people who knew them.”
The defense lawyers’ opening statements were brief. John Diaz, who represents Jordan, told jurors that the evidence against his client was not persuasive. “Karl Jordan did not kill Jason Mizell,” he insisted in his ten-minute opening. “I expect the evidence throughout the trial to prove that.”
Ezra Spilke, Washington’s lawyer, pointed to the delay between Mizell’s murder and trial proceedings as problematic. “This case revolves around 10 seconds 21 years ago — a blink of an eye, a generation ago.”
Mizell and Washington, he said, “were like family.” Washington was an alcoholic and living in Mizell’s studio when he was killed, so his involvement just didn’t make sense.
“Why kill the one person you can depend on?” Spilke said.
As lawyers on both sides presented their openings, Jordan and Washington looked on attentively. Jordan, donning a navy-blue vest and dress pants, and Washington, sporting a slate-gray suit, did not appear to show any dramatic signs of emotion during the presentations.
Washington and Jordan were charged in August 2020 with murder while engaged in narcotics trafficking, and firearm-related murder, for allegedly killing the musician, Jordan, 40, was arrested on Sunday, August 16, 2020, for his alleged involvement in the slaying. Washington, 59, was in federal lockup for a series of gunpoint robberies around New York City about 17 years prior.
On May 30, 2023, Bryant was indicted in Mizell’s killing. They have claimed that Bryant “later admitted to participating in the murder, claiming to one associate that he was in fact the shooter,” but the feds don’t think that he’s the shooter. They previously insisted: “The evidence does not support Bryant’s claim that he was the shooter, and the evidence at trial will prove that Jordan was the individual that shot Mizell.” Bryant will be tried separately from Jordan and Washington. He is expected to go before a jury in 2026. All three men have maintained their innocence.