Judge nixes conviction of 1 of 2 men found guilty of killing Run-DMC's Jam Master Jay
Entertainment
Prosecutors said they were reviewing the ruling.
NEW YORK (AP) — A judge Friday voided the conviction of one of the two men found guilty of the 2002 killing of Run-D.M.C. star Jam Master Jay, ruling that there wasn’t enough evidence that the man had a motive to kill the hip-hop luminary.
The reversal, which came as the judge upheld the other man’s conviction, marked another stunning and confounding turn in one of the hip-hop world’s most elusive cases. It stymied investigators for nearly two decades before two arrests were made in 2020, and authorities had hailed the 2024 convictions as finally getting justice for one of rap’s pioneers.
Jam Master Jay, born Jason Mizell, worked the turntables in Run-D.M.C. as the group helped hip-hop gain mainstream popularity in the 1980s with such hits as “It’s Tricky” and a fresh take on Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way.” His death followed the fatal shootings of Tupac Shakur in 1996 and The Notorious B.I.G. in 1997, forming a skein of tragic violence that took the lives of some of rap’s biggest talents at the turn of the millennium. Mizell was 37.
Nearly two years after the jury verdict in the case surrounding his death, the decision came from the same Brooklyn federal judge who presided over the trial. In Friday’s ruling, U.S. District Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall granted Karl Jordan Jr. an acquittal on the murder charges — a request she had denied when his lawyers made it during the trial.
An eyewitness testified that he saw Jordan shoot the DJ — his own godfather — in his Queens recording studio on Oct. 30, 2002. A onetime tenant in Jordan’s home also testified that he overheard Jordan admit to the killing. But during more than 18 months of post-verdict presentations, Jordan’s lawyers argued that the evidence didn’t support prosecutors’ claims about his alleged motive: revenge for a failed drug deal.
“We are really happy for Mr. Jordan and his family that justice was served,” one of his attorneys, John Diaz, said in an email. Jordan had not yet been sentenced on the murder charges, but he remains behind bars awaiting trial on drug charges from many years after the killing.
Prosecutors said they were reviewing the ruling.
