Two guilty of gunning down RUN-DMC’S Jam Master Jay

THE godson and a childhood friend of Jam Master Jay were found guilty by a jury yesterday for the 2002 murder of the RUN-DMC rap pioneer, who was fatally shot at his New York recording studio in one of the most infamous killings in rap history.

Ronald Washington, 59, and Karl Jordan Jr, 40, were convicted of federal charges of murder while engaged in drug trafficking in the shooting of Jam Master Jay, the stage name of RUN-DMC founding member Jason Mizell, prosecutors in Brooklyn, New York, said.

The verdict came after a month-long trial, where prosecutors called witnesses who were in the studio on Oct 30, 2002 – the night Mizell, then 37, was shot dead. Those witnesses included Mizell’s friend Tony Rincon, who was shot in the leg by one of the killers.

“The witnesses in the recording studio knew the killers, and they were terrified they would be retaliated against if they cooperated,” Breon Peace, US attorney for New York’s Eastern District, said.

Both Washington and Jordan were well known to Mizell, who prosecutors said was killed in a business dispute over a lucrative deal to distribute cocaine in Baltimore, Maryland. Washington was a childhood friend and Jordan was Mizell’s godson. All of them grew up in the same neighbourhood in Queens, New York.

In the 1980s, Mizell and his RUN-DMC bandmates helped usher hip hop into the mainstream with hits including It’s Tricky, My Adidas and Walk This Way, with rock band Aerosmith.

But as Mizell’s music-industry success waned in the 1990s, he turned to dealing cocaine to help fund his music career, according to prosecutors in the US attorney’s office in Brooklyn.

They also called witnesses who told jurors that Jordan and Washington confided to people close to them that they were the killers. Prosecutors said Jordan and Washington conspired to kill Mizell after the musician cut them out of the Baltimore drug deal worth nearly $200,000 (£157,000).

Washington and Jordan face a maximum sentence of life in prison and a mandatory minimum of at least 20 years.

A third defendant, Jay Bryant, is due to face a separate trial for murder.