23 year old Nathan Harris, who had been representing the Kansas City Chiefs in the ongoing Madden NFL 20 Championship Series as FamedNate, has been banned from the $700,000 tournament. Harris was banned after a news report revealed his criminal past.

KCTV5 News published a story detailing Harris's criminal history, which was then discovered by EA. EA quickly made the decision to pull Harris from the tournament, as people with felony convictions or who have committed serious crimes are not allowed to compete in its officially-sanctioned events. "The nature of the offenses involved are clearly not in keeping with the values of our competitions or Electronic Arts and the NFL, and we've taken action accordingly," EA said in a statement to KCTV5. Besides Harris, another competitor was removed from the Madden NFL 20 Championship Series after their crimes also came to light.

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In regards to Harris, he has convicted of felony intimidation in a sexual extortion plot and sentenced to 30 months in prison, as reported by KCTV5. Harris was also charged with cyberstalking, though that charge was dropped in his plea deal.

madden nfl 20 player banned crimes

According to reports, Harris hacked into a computer in 2014 and obtained nude pictures of an underage teenage girl. Harris then allegedly threatened that the nude photos would be sent to the girl's family if she didn't send him more pictures. Prosecutors in the case also claimed that Harris "behaved similarly with four other teenage girls."

Given the serious nature of Harris's crimes, it's not surprising that EA removed him from the Madden NFL 20 tournament. It's possible that the company will ramp up its vetting process in the future to avoid highlighting individuals with problematic pasts, as including them in official tournaments could reflect poorly on the company. This may be especially so when the person involved is representing the team on the game's cover, which was the case with Harris. As previously mentioned, Harris was representing the Kansas City Chiefs in the Madden NFL 20 Championship Series, whose quarterback Patrick Mahomes is the cover star of the game.

If EA Sports does have plans to change its vetting process, nothing have been announced at the time of this writing.

Source: KCTV5 News

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