Zohran Mamdani Puts Convicted Armed Robber Mysonne Linen In Charge Of Criminal Justice Reform
Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has named ex-rapper Mysonne Linen – who served seven years in prison for armed robbery – to his transition team’s criminal justice committee.
Linen, 49, was convicted in 1999 of two taxi holdups in the Bronx in the late 1990s and later reinvented himself as an activist. Mamdani’s committee list lists him (misspelled “Mysoone”) among those named. (RELATED: ‘Natural Enemy’: Mamdani Appoints Radical Professor Who Hates Cops to ‘Community Safety’ Position)
Linen, whose debut album was set to be released on Def Jam before his conviction, has spent recent years advocating for criminal justice and preventing gun violence. He celebrated the appointment on Instagram last month, writing: “We are building something different. »
Mamdani’s transition site features 17 committees, including the “Committee on the Criminal Justice System,” which is expected to offer personnel and policy recommendations as he prepares to take office next month.
Mamdani’s crime-fighting plan focuses on creating a $1.1 billion “Department of Community Safety” to shift nonviolent and mental health calls from police to civilian teams, while keeping NYPD staffing roughly stable.
He also pledged to end the NYPD’s encampment sweeps and replace them with outreach that connects homeless New Yorkers to housing, arguing that the current approach “pushes[es] New Yorkers who live in the cold to another place where they will live in the cold,” according to CBS News.
Regarding jails, Mamdani says he will reduce the population so the city can close Rikers and follow through on borough jails — a plan he said the outgoing administration has made “functionally impossible” on the 2027 timeline, Spectrum News NY1 reported. He previously urged city jail supervisors to “genuinely and completely end solitary confinement,” signing a 2021 letter after an unannounced visit from Rikers.
