Ex-player: Vandenburg 'coaching us' during alleged assault

Jaborian "Tip" McKenzie, Brandon E. Banks and Cory Batey were best friends. Like brothers.

One Saturday night in June 2013, they were hanging out, drinking and listening to music in a dorm at Vanderbilt University. Banks and McKenzie went to grab food — Batey ordered a quesadilla via text message — and they returned to the dorm about 2:30 a.m.

Five lives converged outside Gillette Hall that morning.

The men ran into a Vanderbilt football teammate, Brandon Vandenburg, who asked for help to get a woman from a black Mercedes at the curb. The couple had been out drinking. The woman was mumbling but then passed out.

Months later, all four men — Vandenburg, Batey, Banks and McKenzie — were charged with five counts of aggravated rape and two counts of aggravated sexual battery for an alleged assault on the woman that authorities said occurred that night.

Vandenburg, 21, and Batey, 20, are on trial. Prosecutors say Batey participated in the rape and Vandenburg is responsible for allowing it to happen.

Banks and McKenzie, both 20, are awaiting trial. All four men have pleaded not guilty.

Small talk at first

On Tuesday, McKenzie walked into a Nashville courtroom with his two attorneys in tow. He testified for about two hours in the seventh day of trial.

He frequently adjusted his tight-knotted purple tie and stared straight ahead.

McKenzie was 18 and on a football scholarship at Vanderbilt at the time of the alleged incident. He's now 20, a father and a student and football player at Alcorn State University in Mississippi. He played in his team's national championship victory last month.

McKenzie told a jury about what happened in the dorm room on June 23, 2013. This story is based on his testimony, which was graphic at times.

It was small talk in the dorm room at first, McKenzie said, and then Batey and Banks began sexually assaulting the woman. McKenzie said he took one photo during the alleged rape but denied touching the woman. He said Vandenburg tried to wake up his roommate and then passed out condoms. Vandenburg looked drunk to McKenzie, but also looked like he knew what he was doing.

"He was like, uh, amped," McKenzie said. "He was hyper. He was coaching us to do whatever."

Batey and Vandenburg slapped the alleged victim to make sure she would not wake up, and then Batey urinated on the woman. Banks, McKenzie and Vandenburg then went into the bathroom and had a conversation. McKenzie saw Vandenburg flush condoms down the toilet.

"Banks and I was freaking out, and he was just ensuring that everything would be OK," McKenzie said.

'I didn't want to get no one in trouble'

During McKenzie's testimony, prosecutors played audio from two videos of the alleged rape that a detective previously said Vandenburg sent to friends in California. McKenzie hung his head as the audio played.

He identified Vandenburg's voice in the videos, laughing and encouraging the assaults.

After the alleged rape, McKenzie said, the four men were interviewed by school officials and police. The men met and came up with a plan, deciding to "just tell everything but the bad thing that happened in the room."

McKenzie changed his story in those interviews, telling various versions of what happened about four different times. He gave conflicting statements to school officials and police about how drunk the men were and at times omitted information about who did what.

During a heated cross examination, Worrick Robinson, Batey's attorney, peppered McKenzie with questions about those interviews and the conflicting statements.

"I had pressure from family members telling me not to tell," McKenzie said. "And these guys were my best friends, I don't want to see anything happen to them. ...

"I didn't want to get no one in trouble. This is embarrassing what happened. I didn't want it to get out."

But it did get out. And McKenzie's time on the witness stand Tuesday was pivotal to the state's case.

McKenzie said he did not want to testify, but did it hoping it might get him a better deal, or less prison time, in his own case. He said there was no formal agreement in exchange for his testimony.

McKenzie had not seen Batey in about a year and a half until he walked through the courtroom doors.

He looked at Batey only once, when the prosecutor asked him to identify Batey to the jury. Batey sat stoic, in the same seat he's occupied for the past seven days.

When their lives converged in the courtroom, there was no trace of brotherhood.

Reach Stacey Barchenger at 615-726-8968 or on Twitter @sbarchenger.