Late last year, it was reported on social media that Level 1 judge Ross Prajzner was convicted of a sex crime in 2015. After hearing about these reports on December 25th 2017, I immediately contacted the Judge Conduct Committee and Prajzner’s Regional Coordinator to begin an expedited decertification process. This process was completed within 24 hours, Prajzner was decertified, and Wizards of the Coast was informed soon afterwards. Prajzner was not active as a judge in 2017 and he was scheduled to be demoted as part of annual level maintenance requirement checks.
Prajzner’s name was also removed from the May 2016 Judge Anniversaries post, which was based on certification date lists and not current activity status.
Recently, it was reported that the case was sent to the magicjudgefeedback@gmail.com address already in July 2017. This is true. Due to an administrative error, the case was not handled at that time, and I wasn’t aware of the e-mail until it was shared on social media. This is very unfortunate, and I am sorry. We strive to prevent such errors from happening in the future. I am not aware of whether the case was also reported to the Wizards of the Coast at that time.
While the Judge Conduct Committee cannot respond to every piece of feedback it receives, the Magic community has the right to expect this type of case to be handled and responded to in a timely manner. If you do not receive a response to your report within a month, please send another message or ask your local Regional Coordinator to follow up on the matter with the current JCC lead. If possible, use the Magic Judge Feedback Form at http://feedback.magicjudges.org rather than e-mail – this helps the JCC lead track which cases have been handled, and gives us the information we need in a more structured way. Finally, please understand that we cannot always share details about investigations or disciplinary actions that were taken.
The JCC remains committed to protecting the Magic community and keeping the game fair and fun for everyone.
Johanna Virtanen
Judge Conduct Committee Lead 2016-2017