NEW YORK - Jurors were to start deliberating over the fate of two men charged with murdering the famed Run-DMC member Jam Master Jay.
Now in its fourth week, the trial is centered on the events of 30 October 2002, when pioneering rapper Jason "Jay" Mizell, widely known by his DJ moniker, was fatally shot in the head in his Queens studio.
He was 37 years old and a father of three.
The case has gone unsolved for more than two decades. In 2020 prosecutors charged Ronald Washington and Karl Jordan Jr., the alleged shooter, with murder while engaged in narcotics trafficking and firearms-related murder.
But in their respective closing arguments on Wednesday, defense teams said a third person, Jay Bryant, was in fact Mizell's killer.
Prosecutors accuse Bryant of letting Mizell's murderers into the musician's studio, where he was shot dead, but say Bryant was an accomplice to the larger conspiracy, rather than the shooter himself.
He will be tried separately at a later date.
Defense teams pointed out that Bryant's hat was discovered at the crime scene, and say the spotlight should be on him, not their clients.
Attorney Michael Hueston, who represents Jordan, worked to poke holes and point out inconsistencies in witness testimony, urging the jury that reasonable doubt as to Jordan and Washington's involvement in the murder remained.
"This is an attempt to make a mockery of the judicial system," said Susan Kellman, a lawyer on Washington's team. "They have no case against anybody but Jay Bryant."
But in their rebuttal prosecutors reiterated their arguments that Jordan and Washington were in fact executioners who ambushed Mizell as part of a drug dispute.
Following closing arguments and the government's rebuttal, Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall gave the anonymous jury their instructions before sending them home for the day.