{"id":199796,"date":"2026-04-16T20:05:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T20:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/199796\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T20:05:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T20:05:09","slug":"suspect-in-jam-master-jays-2002-queens-killing-expected-to-take-plea-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/199796\/","title":{"rendered":"Suspect in Jam Master Jay’s 2002 Queens killing expected to take plea deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

The third and final suspect in the 2002 murder<\/a> of Jam Master Jay is expected to take a plea deal in connection with the rap legend\u2019s slaying, according to a federal court filing in Brooklyn.<\/p>\n

The suspect, Jay Bryant, didn\u2019t go to trial alongside co-defendants Karl Jordan Jr. and Ronald Washington<\/a> in 2024, but he featured heavily in testimony about the Run-DMC icon\u2019s shooting.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors allege he walked into Jay\u2019s Queens music studio on Oct. 30, 2002, and opened the rear door so Jordan and Washington could come inside and murder him.<\/p>\n

Jordan and Washington\u2019s defense team argued that Bryant, who confessed to his uncle that he shot Jay,<\/a> and whose hat was found in the studio with his DNA on it, was the real killer.<\/p>\n

A docket filing indicates that Bryant will have a change-of-plea hearing before a Brooklyn magistrate judge sometime in the future. It\u2019s not clear what charge he\u2019ll cop to, or what he\u2019ll admit to in regard to his role in the murder.<\/p>\n

\"JayJay Bryant, who was charged in Jam Master Jay\u2019s 2002 murder. (Facebook)<\/p>\n

Bryant\u2019s lawyer, Cesar de Castro, did not return messages seeking comment, and a representative for U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella declined comment Thursday.<\/p>\n

Jordan and Washington were convicted of Jay\u2019s killing, but last December, Brooklyn District Court Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall overturned Jordan\u2019s guilty verdict<\/a> and acquitted him, ruling that prosecutors failed to prove<\/a> that he killed Jay over a drug trafficking beef, a condition of the federal charges he faced.<\/p>\n

The feds are appealing that decision.<\/a><\/p>\n

The judge did not overturn Washington\u2019s conviction.<\/p>\n

The \u201cIt\u2019s Tricky\u201d rapper, born Jason Mizell, was playing a football video game in his second-floor studio on Merrick Blvd. in Hollis, Queens, when a gunman shot him in the head.<\/p>\n

The five other people in the studio kept mum for decades, until finally taking the stand in in early 2024 for Jordan and Washington\u2019s trial. Bryant was added to the case in 2023, eight months before the trial began. In December 2023, he pleaded guilty in a separate federal drug trafficking and gun possession case.<\/p>\n

murder<\/p>\n

\"KarlKarl Jordan, Jr. is charged with bursting into the DJ and hip-hop icon’s music studio in October 2002 and killing Jam Master Jay. (Obtained by Daily News)<\/p>\n

Prosecutors contended that Jay recruited Jordan and Washington to sell coke for him in Baltimore, but the deal went sour when the rapper\u2019s drug connection had bad blood with Washington and threatened to kill him. The government alleged that the two men sought to kill Jay, steal his drugs and take over the drug distribution plot in Maryland.<\/p>\n

Jay\u2019s friend Uriel \u201cTony\u201d Rincon told the Daily News in 2007<\/a> he was inches away but never saw the killer\u2019s face. But when Rincon took the stand, he named Jordan,<\/a> who was the rapper\u2019s godson, as the shooter, and said Washington was standing guard over the studio door.<\/p>\n

Lydia High, Jay\u2019s business manager, testified that Washington pointed a gun at her and ordered her to the ground during the shooting. She didn\u2019t name Jordan during her testimony, but she described how the shooter had a neck tattoo similar to Jordan\u2019s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The third and final suspect in the 2002 murder of Jam Master Jay is expected to take a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199797,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[98,262,263,266,85,267,9,24,264,12,63,261,122,124,123,265],"class_list":{"0":"post-199796","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-queens","8":"tag-brooklyn","9":"tag-city","10":"tag-county","11":"tag-crime-and-public-safety","12":"tag-latest-headlines","13":"tag-local-news","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-city","16":"tag-new-york-county","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-nyc","19":"tag-nyc-crime","20":"tag-queens","21":"tag-queens-headlines","22":"tag-queens-news","23":"tag-sub-county-region"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199796\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}