Jam Master Jay Update
Because of my 2003 Playboy article, one of Jay's alleged killers wants to be tried separately from his co-defendant.
Photo by Michael Ochs/ Getty Images
Things are heating up in the Jam Master Jay case.
The latest development is that one of Jay’s alleged killers, Karl “Little D” Jordan, wants the murder indictment dismissed or a separate trial severed from his co-defendant, Ronald Washington, because of comments Washington made in my 2003 Playboy story, “The Last Days of Jam Master Jay.”
In my article, Washington implicated Jordan and his father, Darryl “Big D” Jordan, as Jay’s killers. Darryl Jordan was Run-DMC’s road manager and a pallbearer at Jay’s funeral. Speaking to me from behind bars, Washington claimed that on the night of the murder, he was on the street buying bullets for Jay’s gun. Returning to Jay’s studio, he said he saw Karl Jordan and his father enter the studio. Not long after, he said he heard three shots and saw Karl Jordan rushing down the fire escape.
“I’m positive it was Little D. I looked him right in his face before he ran off,” he told me.
Later that night, he claimed he bumped into Karl Jordan and asked him what happened: “Little D told me, ‘My pops wasn’t supposed to shoot Jay. That wasn’t supposed to happen’.”
I presumed Washington was telling me this to deflect blame from his own role in the murder. Big D, as his nickname suggests, is huge, nearly twice the size of the description of the killers that circulated in the media, and not easily mistaken for someone else. The feds have not charged Darryl Jordan in the murder.
Karl Jordan’s lawyers just moved to dismiss the murder indictment because the government waited nearly two decades to charge him, making it difficult for Jordan to mount a defence since “beeper records” that might prove his innocence are no longer available.
If the judge doesn’t dismiss the case, they want Jordan tried separately from Washington, which would give Jordan’s lawyers the opportunity to cross-examine Washington about the statements he made to me in the Playboy story.
“It is anticipated that the government will seek to use Washington’s statements to prove its case against both men. There is no question that the statement by Washington accusing Mr. Jordan of being present at the scene of the murder incriminates Mr. Jordan, which necessitates severance,” wrote Karl Jordan’s lawyer Michael Hueston in a court filing.
Read my Playboy article here: The Last Days of Jam Master Jay
In related news, lawyers for Jordan’s codefendant, Ronald Washington, also want the case dismissed on similar grounds. Washington is suspected of providing cover for Karl Jordan, who allegedly fired the bullet that killed Jam Master Jay. The feds charge Washington and Jordan murdered Jay after the Run-DMC deejay excluded Washington from a lucrative cocaine deal.
“The government has known about the crime since 2002 and has been convinced that Mr. Washington committed the murder since at least 2006. This uniquely long pre-indictment delay violates fundamental conceptions of justice and due process,” Washington’s attorney Susan Kellman wrote in a motion filed on Monday.
Kellman has a point. When I was interviewed by FBI agents and federal prosecutors in 2004, I realized they thought Washington was the prime suspect in the murder. In 2007, during a separate robbery trial in Brooklyn in which a jury found Washington guilty, federal prosecutors argued for a stiffer sentence because Washington was a suspect in Jay’s murder.
“The government then waited another 14 years to charge Mr. Washington with this murder. The government knew or should have known that Mr. Washington’s ability to present an effective defense would have to deteriorate with each passing year,” Kellman wrote.
So why the delay in bringing an indictment?
One source I spoke to, who helped run Jam Master Jay’s drug operation and is cooperating with the government, put it this way: “The FBI told me that the reason it took eighteen years is that motherfuckers weren’t telling the truth. Everybody was lying.”
Read my story about the secret relationship between Jam Master Jay and the Black Mafia Family that led to his death: Hip-Hop Icon, Neighborhood Hero, Drug Dealer, Murder Victim