Convicted rapist banned from ‘Magic: the Gathering’ play

Wizards of the Coast suspended a player of Magic: the Gathering from competitive play until the year 2049. His Magic Online account, the online version of Magic: the Gathering played with digital cards, has been frozen and flagged for deletion. The reason? He’s a convicted rapist listed on the Virginia sex offender website.

Zachary Jesse finished 8th place at the Grand Prix Atlantic City held this past May. During his match with Christian Calcano, the tournament’s eventual champion, the following tweet was posted on Twitter:

Quick reminder: Zach Jesse is a literal rapist who got away with serving three months of an eight year plea deal. http://t.co/99dsBEzFKP

— Drew Levin (@drewlevin) May 10, 2015

The link goes to an 11-year-old news article about the rape committed by Zachary Jesse while he was a student at the University of Virginia. The article details the plea agreement reached between the then 19-year-old Zachary Jesse and the prosecutor in the case. According to the victim’s testimony at a preliminary hearing, also a student at the University of Virginia, she was “raped both vaginally and anally while slumped over a toilet in her apartment.” She also had bruises constant with rape.

Zachary Jesse’s victim was also highly intoxicated. Hours after her last drink, her blood alcohol level was .15, nearly double the state’s legal limit. As drunk as she was, it’s highly unlikely that she would have been capable of consenting to sex on a toilet with someone she just met.

In exchange for pleading guilty to aggravated sexual battery, a felony, Zachary Jesse served only three months in regional jail, and it was scheduled so that it wouldn’t interfere with his college classes. He was also given ten years of probation, 18-months of that supervised.

For raping a woman as she lay drunk on a toilet, both vaginally and anally.

How can someone plead guilty to raping a woman and not serve serious time in prison? I’d like to think that’s what we build prisons for, so we have places to send predators like Zachary Jesse to when they rape incapacitated women on toilets.

Evidently a lot of people in the Magic: the Gathering community are critical of Wizards of the Coast for banning Jesse.  Some are also critical of Drew Levin for bringing this to people’s attention by tweeting about it. I don’t get any of that. Zachary Jesse is a convicted felon. He’s a registered sex offender in the state of Virginia. In fact, he’s classified as a violent sex offender.

How could Wizards of the Coast, a game company owned by Hasbro, a toy company, not ban someone like Zachary Jesse? Once it became known that he was a convicted rapist, someone identified as a violent sexual predator on the Virginia sex offender registry, they didn’t have a choice.

Don’t want to get banned from playing Magic: the Gathering? Don’t violently rape women passed out drunk on toilets.