Final Vanderbilt rape suspect agrees to plea deal

Justice came quietly in Courtroom 5A.

After nearly five years, the final defendant in the rape case against four former Vanderbilt University football players stepped forward Monday and took responsibility for what he did.

Jaborian “Tip” McKenzie, who testified against his three co-defendants, accepted a deal with prosecutors and pleaded guilty to facilitation of the aggravated rape of an unconscious female student, closing a case that shook the community and challenged one of its bedrock institutions.

Prosecutors hope his guilty plea will bring peace to the young woman who has testified four times about the rape, each time identifying herself in pictures and videos of the brutal assault.

McKenzie, who is now 23, will serve 10 years of probation for his role in the crime. He also will register as a sex offender, a label he will carry for life. He will not serve prison time. McKenzie hung his head while Assistant District Attorney Jan Norman described the case against him during a muted, seven-minute hearing.

On June 23, 2013, McKenzie helped his three teammates carry the woman into a dorm room at Gillette Hall after a night out drinking with co-defendant Brandon Vandenburg.

Then, for 32 minutes, the men took photos and videos while three of them raped her.

There was no evidence McKenzie touched the woman. But he was standing next to his teammates while they raped and slapped her, something he had described under oath.

McKenzie answered Criminal Court Judge Monte Watkins’ questions with “yes, sir” and “no, sir” before pleading guilty. His mother watched silently from the front row, where she sat alone.

Prosecutors wondered ‘would this day ever come?’

There was none of the frenetic energy that colored the trials against McKenzie’s three co-defendants. But there was palpable sense of relief.

“Almost five years,” Deputy District Attorney Roger Moore said after the hearing. “There was times when we thought, ‘Would this day ever come?’ ”

McKenzie’s three co-defendants — Vandenburg, 24; Cory Batey, 24; and Brandon Banks, 24 — have all been convicted of aggravated rape and are serving time in Tennessee prisons. The verdicts followed a 2015 mistrial against Vandenburg and Batey.

After the final trial against Banks wrapped in June 2017, prosecutors began “lengthy discussions” with McKenzie and his attorney Jodie Bell that led to Monday’s deal, Moore said.

McKenzie’s three co-defendants all have appeals pending, but he will not be able to appeal the decision. And his deal bars him from discussing the case in any public forum during his 10-year probation.

The victim, who had attended the trials against McKenzie’s co-defendants, was not in the courtroom Monday.

But Norman said prosecutors had kept her informed throughout the case.

Reach Adam Tamburin at 615-7265986 and atamburin@tennessean.com. Follow him on Twitter @tamburintweets.