Exclusive | Widow of cabbie mugged by crew including Zohran Mamdani criminal justice adviser blasts appointment to transition team: ‘Are you crazy?’
A New York City mayor‑elect’s choice for a transition team has left one cab driver’s widow in stunned disbelief. The widow of a Bronx taxi driver who was mugged by a crew that included former convict‑turned‑activist Mysonne Linen almost 30 years ago said she was horrified when Zohran Mamdani announced that Linen would sit on his “criminal legal system” committee.
“Are you crazy?” the Bronx woman – whose husband, Joseph Eziri, died last year – told the New York Post when she discovered the appointment. 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?”
The mayor‑elect’s decision was announced on a Tuesday after a long list of 400 New Yorkers, chosen for 17 different advisory groups, were named. Linen, a 49‑year‑old, was included among the 20 people on the criminal‑justice panel. The panel is one of many committees that Mamdani hopes will help shape his new administration.
Linen himself has a turbulent past. He was jailed for seven years in 1999 after a violent armed robbery gang – the same crew that carried out the June 8, 1997 robbery of Eziri – carried out a run that stole a Cab driver’s fare and used a knife. The gang also pulled off a gun‑point theft of fellow cab driver Francisco Monsanto on March 31, 1998, according to the Bronx prosecutors.
Eziri suffered a heart attack last year and never really recovered from the trauma of the 1997 mugging, his wife said. “My husband went to work that evening,” she recalled. “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 how Eziri would feel about Linen’s new role, the shocked woman said she was sure her late husband would not be pleased. “He would protest against it, that’s for sure,” she said. “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.”
Mamdani defended the appointment in a Lower Manhattan press briefing, saying that the 400‑member slate brings “both fluency of the policies and politics of the city, the places that they’ve succeeded, the places that they’ve failed.” He promised that all experiences would be considered as the city moves forward.
Linen has repeatedly denied involvement in the 1997 robberies. After his release, he reinvented himself as a community activist, volunteering as a violence interrupter and founding Rising Kings, a non‑profit that teaches courses to inmates at Rikers Island. He reportedly has faced up to 25 years behind bars and has since claimed to be a “convict‑turned‑activist.”
The mayor‑elect’s transition team contains several other controversial figures. Among them is black nationalist Lumumba Bandele, head of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and supporter of Assata Shakur and Herman Bell. Another is former Maryland Department of Juvenile Services chief Vincent Schiraldi, who resigned amid allegations of weak oversight and contract mismanagement. These appointments have sparked debate about the credentials and backgrounds of those chosen to shape the city’s future.
— Additional reporting by Hannah Fierick
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