Who is Mysonne Linen? Arrest history and more about convicted rapper tapped as Mamdani’s criminal justice adviser

Before he assumes office as New York City's youngest Mayor on January 1, 2026, Zohran Mamdani has appointed Mysonne Linen, born Mysonne E. Linen, a rapper-turned-activist with a criminal past, to the 20-member criminal justice panel.

Linen's (served seven years in state prison) appointment was announced in a November 26 Instagram post from Until Freedom.

"We put together a team of more than 400 New Yorkers who are on 17 different committees, and these are New Yorkers who bring with them both a fluency of the policies and politics of the city, the places that they've succeeded, the places that they've failed, and we will take all of their experiences and their analysis into account as we build a city for each and every person," Mamdani told a Fox News correspondent on Tuesday.

FORMERLY INCARCERATED: NYC Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has chosen a formerly incarcerated rapper to serve on his City Hall transition team.

Mysonne Linen was convicted and served seven years in prison in the late 1990s for two armed robberies of taxi drivers. pic.twitter.com/SaQK5EyoUZ

— Fox News (@FoxNews) December 8, 2025

According to multiple outlets, after entering the rap scene through rap battles in the late 1990s, Linen was once signed to Def Jam Records. However, he was convicted in 1999 for two armed robberies of taxi drivers and served seven years in state prison, of a potential 25-year sentence, before being paroled in 2006.

According to Fox News, prosecutors said that he was part of a group that robbed taxi driver Joseph Eziri on June 8, 1997, and he also held a cab driver, Francisco Monsanto, at gunpoint on March 31, 1998. However, Linen maintained that he had been falsely accused.

After his release, Linen began volunteering as a "so-called violence interrupter" per The New York Post and founded Rising Kings, a non-profit educational programme that teaches inmates at Rikers Island. He later co-founded Until Freedom, a social justice activism organization with Tamika Mallory and Angelo Pinto.

"Are you crazy?": The widow of Joseph Eziri, robbed by Mysonne Linen, speaks out after the rapper's appointment

The widow of Joseph Eziri was shocked and upset by Zohran Mamdani's decision to appoint him as an adviser. As mentioned above, Eziri, who died from a heart attack last year, was mugged by Mysonne Linen on June 8, 1997.

"Are you crazy?" said his widow after hearing Mamdani's move, in a statement to The New York Post, published on December 9.

She added:

"It's wrong. Somebody that committed that kind of crime and then you make him an advisor on criminality? Please … To me, he is no good. Why do you give him a position like that?"

Recalling the day her husband got mugged by Linen, his wife said that her "husband went to work that evening" and "later in the night he called me, telling me that a guy that he picked up – I think it was on Ogden Avenue – took his money, and then he used a knife."

When asked by the outlet how her late husband would feel about Linen being appointed as an adviser, the woman said:

"He would protest against it, that’s for sure. I know my husband. It’s very very clear – that’s not a job for him. Let him advise people on how not to be criminals – not advise the mayor on criminality."

Stay tuned for more updates.