A day after it was revealed that New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani had named ex-convict rapper-turned-activist Mysonne Linen as a criminal justice adviser to his transition team, the widow of a taxi driver assaulted by Commissioner Mamdani’s former team has spoken out.
“Are you crazy?” a shocked Bronx woman told the New York Post when she learned that Linen, who had served seven years in prison, had been appointed to advise Mamdani in the criminal justice system.
The woman went on to call the appointee “wrong” – “Someone who has committed a crime like that and you’re going to make him a crime consultant?” she told the NYP.
Linen, 49, was named to the 20-member Criminal Justice Commission on Mamdani’s transition team last month, a move the rapper-turned-community activist hailed as “a testament to our decades of work advocating for black and brown communities and our expertise in gun violence prevention, legislative advocacy and criminal justice reform.”
But the widow of taxi driver Joseph Eziri, who was mugged by a crew that included Linen in the 1990s, was having none of it.
“Please… He’s no good for me. Why are you giving him that position?” NYP quoted him as saying.
Recalling the harrowing night, the woman went on to tell Eziri, “My husband went to work that night. He called me later that night and told me that the guy he picked up—I think it was on Ogden Avenue—took his money and then used a knife…”
Eziri died of a heart attack last year, but the woman said if he had been around he would have protested: “He would have protested that, that’s for sure. I know my husband.”
Linen was among 400 New Yorkers appointed to various panels by Zohran Mamdani last month.
“We’ve put together a team of over 400 New Yorkers who are on 17 different committees, and these are New Yorkers who bring with them the fluidity of politics and city politics, places where they’ve succeeded after places where they’ve failed,” Mamdani said after the appointment.
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What was Mysonne Linen in prison for?
Linen, an up-and-coming rapper in the 1990s, was convicted in 1999 of being part of a team that carried out the robberies of two New York cabbies, including Eziri, whose widow spoke to the NYP.
Prosecutors said at the time that Linen and his crew were behind the June 8, 1997, robbery of Joseph Eziri, as well as the March 31, 1998, gun theft from taxi driver Francisco Monsanto.
Linen was sentenced to seven to 14 years in prison and was paroled in 2006.
After his release, the rapper turned to community service, volunteering to disrupt violence, and later founded Rising Kings, a nonprofit group that runs classes for Rikers Island inmates.
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Linen also reportedly teamed up with anti-Israel activist and Mamdani consultant Linda Sarsour to found the social justice nonprofit Until Freedom.
Despite Linen’s recent history of community service and activism, many criticized Mamdani for the appointment, including Benny Boscio, president of the Correctional Officers Benevolent Association, and John Chell, the recently retired NYPD chief.
In response, Linen’s organization Until Freedom said the rapper-turned-activist focused where it mattered.
“They tried with a headline. We’re out there doing real work. Mysonne is the BOSS on Until Freedom,” the organization said in an Instagram post.
