A man accused of conspiring to kill Jason Mizell, known as Jam Master Jay, the pioneering D.J. of the rap group Run-DMC, pleaded guilty on Monday to taking part in a murder plot that had baffled investigators for nearly two decades.
The admission from Jay Bryant, 52, was the first time anyone had publicly acknowledged orchestrating the killing, which had shaken fans of Run-DMC, the hip-hop group known for its upbeat, sunny hip-hop in the late ’80s and early ’90s, distinct from the gangster rap taking over at the time.
A pair of arrests in 2020 offered the first bit of clarity in nearly two decades to a case that had gone cold. Karl Jordan Jr. and Ronald Washington, Mr. Mizell’s godson and childhood friend, were charged with killing Mr. Mizell in a drug deal gone wrong.
The involvement of Mr. Bryant was unveiled in 2023 when he was charged in a superseding indictment. He was set to go on trial separately this year.
“More than two decades after the coldblooded, execution-style killing of Mr. Mizell, an exhaustive investigation revealed Bryant’s role,” Joseph Nocella Jr., the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement.
At about 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 30, 2002, Mr. Bryant, Mr. Jordan and Mr. Washington broke into Mr. Mizell’s music studio on Merrick Boulevard in Jamaica, Queens, prosecutors said. Mr. Bryant’s role was to open the back door of the building to let his co-conspirators in, he said in court on Monday.
“I helped them kill Jason Mizell,” Mr. Bryant — tall, heavyset and with a graying beard — said, reading from a prepared statement. He did not name the co-conspirators.
At point-blank range, Mr. Jordan fired two shots at Mr. Mizell, one into his head, according to prosecutors.
A hat with Mr. Bryant’s DNA was found at the studio, and he was seen entering the building right before the shooting, prosecutors said. Mr. Bryant later told his uncle that he was the shooter, according to trial evidence, though the government maintained that Mr. Jordan was the actual killer.
Mr. Bryant faces a sentence of 15 to 20 years. His lawyer, Cesar de Castro, declined to comment to reporters after the hearing.
Both Mr. Washington and Mr. Bryant were convicted at trial in 2024. But last December, Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall overturned Mr. Jordan’s murder conviction, writing that there was not enough evidence that Mr. Mizell’s murder had been drug related.
The U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn has since appealed that ruling. Judge DeArcy Hall also denied an acquittal motion from Mr. Washington, whose lawyers similarly argued that prosecutors had not shown evidence of a drug conspiracy.
Mr. Mizell grew up in the Queens neighborhood of Hollis, which has a storied history of producing hip-hop artists. As the pioneering D.J. for Run-DMC, he made the beats for the trio that included Joseph Simmons, known as Run, and Darryl McDaniels, known as DMC.
For years, Mr. Mizell had railed against the use of illegal drugs, including in a public service announcement with other members of Run-DMC. But in the years leading up to his murder, Mr. Mizell was moving cocaine for cash, serving as a middleman between dealers and street sellers.
In that context, prosecutors said, Mr. Mizell cut a deal with Mr. Washington, a close friend and drug trafficker from Baltimore, to sell cocaine for nearly $200,000. But the deal came apart, leading to a killing that prosecutors said was motivated by greed and revenge.
Santul Nerkar is a Times reporter covering federal courts in Brooklyn.
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