On November 7th, the Madden 20 Kansas City Chiefs Club Championship got underway in Los Angeles. The biggest news from that event, however, isn’t who won, it’s that the winner was previously convicted of trying to extort a teenage female over nude photos.
FamedNate’s Conviction
FamedNate, whose real name is Nathan Harris, was one of the participants in the Chiefs Club Championship on November 7th and 8th. But before his competitive Madden career, Harris was convicted in 2017 of harassing and threatening the underage girl over nude photos that he had in his possession.
In May of 2017, Harris pleaded guilty to intimidation, which is a Class 3 felony in the state of Illinois. Harris, who was 21 at the time, admitted that he tried to threaten his victim because he wanted her to send him more nude photos. He obtained the original series of nude photos of the female by hacking another person’s computer and allegedly told her that if she didn’t send him more pictures, Harris would send the photos he did have to her family.
Harris was originally charged in August of 2016 with cyber-stalking and intimidation, but the cyber-stalking charge was dropped once he pleaded guilty to intimidation in May 2017. With his guilty plea, Harris was sentenced to 30 months that August, but, according to public records, was released on parole in August 2019.
At the time of his trial, Illinois Assistant State’s Attorney Dan Clifton was looking for a harsher three-year sentence.
In order to increase the sentence, Clifton presented evidence from a Champaign police officer that demonstrated that Harris had a prior history of wrongdoings. Harris allegedly engaged in similar behaviors with four other females that he knew from high school in 2012, when he was 16 years old.
Another piece of evidence that Clifton presented included an instance where Harris allegedly forced a male to perform a sex act on him when Harris was 15. That incident was supposedly not reported to police until 18 months later. Harris, according to Clifton, also reportedly tried to shoot nude photos of three people, two females and a male, by posing as a representative of a professional photographer. This allegedly happened in 2016 after Harris was released on bond for the previously mentioned charges
One important piece to keep in mind is while Clifton alleged that Harris committed a series of crimes prior to pleading guilty to intimidation, Harris was never convicted of any of those other crimes.
Did EA know about his prior conviction?
Despite his sketchy history, Harris pleads that he is a changed man. SGO has obtained screenshots from a Madden online chat where Harris talks about his prior conviction. Harris wrote, “They’re bashing who I used to be I’m a different man now…I’m not proud of my past but I’ve worked like hell to change and better myself.”
SGO initially contacted the Kansas City Chiefs on the matter, but they declined to comment and instead pointed to EA for answers.
When asked, EA provided the following statement to SGO:
Following a recent tournament, we became aware that two EA SPORTS Madden NFL 20 Championship Series competitors had a felony criminal history. It is our policy that players that have committed felony and serious crimes will not be allowed to compete in our 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.
Effective immediately, the two players have been indefinitely suspended from the Madden NFL Championship Series, and will not be allowed to engage in EA sanctioned Madden competitions.
We consistently monitor the competition to ensure continued integrity both on-and-off-the field. It was not identified until after a recent events that these individuals had prior criminal history. We took action immediately after the discovery.
That other competitor is allegedly MyThumbRwepons, the Dallas Cowboys Club Champion.
SGO has also learned the EA is increasing its efforts to ensure that situations like this never happen again, and that all players are properly vetted before being allowed to participate in future tournaments.
