Colorado Begins Security Shilo Sanders’ legal troubles are under scrutiny as a nearly decade-long saga continues to unfold. Sanders, the 24-year-old son of Buffaloes coach and Pro Football Hall of Famer Deion Sanders, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy last October in the wake of a Texas court judgment against him for nearly $12 million of dollars in damages owed to a former security officer. guard at his Dallas high school following an alleged assault.
According to Texas and Colorado court documents obtained and reviewed this week by AtleticoJohn Darjean claimed that Sanders, then 15, had assaulted Darjean during an altercation at Triple A Academy in 2015, leaving Darjean with cervical spine damage and permanent neurological problems. Sanders claimed in court documents that Darjean was the aggressor.
Sanders’ bankruptcy filing called into question his personal net worth in an era of college sports where athletes can cash in on name, image and likeness rights.
Darjean and his lawyers argue in court documents that Sanders failed to properly disclose his assets when he filed for bankruptcy. They are still trying to collect the $11.89 million judgment they were ordered to pay after a March 2022 civil trial in a Texas district court ruled in Darjean’s favor. Sanders failed to appear at trial and claims in court documents that he could not afford legal representation at the time, notification of the new trial dates never reached him, and he did not learn of the default judgment until 2023.
According to court documents from April 2020, his previous attorneys collectively withdrew from the case because they were informed by Sanders “that he is unwilling or unable to continue to fund the defense of this case.” Sanders’ bankruptcy filing in Colorado indicates that he is a graduate student looking for a “new start in life.”
Shilo Sanders appeared in the Louis Vuitton Menswear Ready-to-wear Fall-Winter 2024/2025 collection as part of Paris Fashion Week on January 16, 2024. (Alain Jocard/AFP via Getty Images)
This week, Sanders and his lawyers filed a motion in a Dallas-area court to seal 21 court documents dating back to August 2017 that they say contain “sensitive and confidential information” related to Sanders. The motion states that Darjean violated the initial protective order established in 2018 on various social media platforms in recent years, part of an ongoing dispute over what information should be withheld because Sanders was a minor at the time of the incident.
This April, Darjean appeared in “Fearless with Jason Whitlock” for a 90 minutes interview in which he details his side of the story and includes video testimony from Deion Sanders. Darjean claimed that a former administrator at the school “stole” surveillance footage of the altercation and gave it to Deion Sanders. The former Cowboys cornerback he told TMZ in 2016 that Darjean was “a scammer in real life”.
A spokesperson for the University of Colorado said Wednesday that the university, as well as Deion and Shilo Sanders, “will reserve comment as the litigation is ongoing.” Attorneys for Sanders and Darjean did not respond to requests for comment.
The alleged assault
Video obtained by TMZ in 2016 shows the first stages of the altercation and alleged assault on Sept. 11, 17, 2015. Darjean approaches Sanders on the school basketball court and grabs his right arm. Sanders shrugs off the attempt before the video cuts to a fight taking place in the distance as he spills into the school hall.
Both sides claim the dispute had to do with Sanders talking on the phone to his mother Pilar, which was against school policy. Darjean’s lawsuit alleged that Sanders attacked him by elbowing him in the neck and chest before punching Darjean multiple times in the same area and calling the attack “sudden, unexpected, unprovoked.”
According to documents filed in bankruptcy court in February, Sanders’ side of the story is starkly different. It is alleged that Darjean became excessively physical with the teenager. Sanders said he was pressed against a wall for more than a minute by Darjean and could not move. The school’s principal, Ruda Nash, witnessed the order and was one of several staff members who attempted to distance Darjean from Sanders, according to Sanders. The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services received a written statement from Nash, who said Darjean held Sanders by the neck before throwing him to the ground. After they eventually separated, Sanders called 911, according to Nash.
Regardless of dissenting claims about what happened, Deion Sanders and Darjean knew each other before the incident. Darjean, a former pitcher in the New York Yankees organization, coached youth baseball in the community. Deion Sanders also served as the head football coach at Triple A Academy for two seasons in 2015 and 2016. In his interview on Whitlock’s show in April, Darjean claims that Deion Sanders called him personally to take Shilo’s phone away because of the his contempt for Pilar, his ex-wife. They divorced in 2013.
In June 2016, Darjean first filed a lawsuit against Deion, Pilar and Shilo in Dallas District Court claiming her “serious and permanent injuries.” Deion Sanders was ultimately removed from the lawsuit in January 2019.
“I tried to contact him, he didn’t come see me in the hospital, he didn’t say, ‘Hey man, I know my son hurt you,’” Darjean said on Whitlock’s show. “He flipped the script and sent a piece of video to TMZ and said I was the aggressor and said I attacked his son.”
A year later, in June 2017, Darjean filed a defamation lawsuit against Deion Sanders over Sanders’ comments to TMZ. The case would eventually be dismissed due to lack of prosecution in February 2019.
TO YouTube channels titled “Prime Time for The Truth” was created in November 2021. It previously featured a video of Deion Sanders’ deposition, but has since been removed. TO separate YouTube video was made a month ago asking for donations to a GoFundMe account that says Darjean’s medical bills have exceeded $900,000 and that Sanders has yet to complete payments. He received $150 of the $800,000 goal.
Collection on the sentence and NIL
Darjean and his lawyers argue in bankruptcy court that Sanders has not been transparent about the entirety of his assets arising from the application in the NIL landscape.
Sanders, who began his college career at South Carolina before transferring to play for his father at Jackson State and eventually Colorado, has been part of high-profile deals with the NIL as the Buffs under Deion Sanders have become one of the greatest sports stories.
Shilo recently appeared in a cameo on the hit Starz show “BMF” — in which he played his father. In January, Shilo and his brother Shedeur, Colorado’s starting quarterback, walked the catwalk in Paris for the Louis Vuitton fall-winter show. He starred in commercials for Google alongside Shedeur and starred in marketing campaigns alongside his father and brothers for Kentucky Fried Chicken and Oikos yogurt.
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In his bankruptcy filing in Colorado court last year, Sanders revealed he had a gross income of $193,713 in 2023, while the year before he earned $216,950 in his final season at Jackson State. He also showed his liabilities – mainly the 2022 court judgment – estimated at $11.3 million. Among his claimed assets is a 2023 Mercedes GLE valued at $75,900. The necklaces valued at $75,000 were later removed as property.
Court filings say Darjean said Sanders is worth more than the $320,000 claimed in his bankruptcy filing — he believes Sanders moved money into one of his two LLCs, Big 21 and SS21.
“It is Shilo’s very NIL value and/or public value that is the source of the paid engagements and non-stop social media appearances,” Darjean’s complaint reads, according to Westword, a Denver-based independent publication that first reported Sanders’ bankruptcy case on May 24 and I downloaded the document before it was sealed this month. “The entire foundation of the NIL concept is the value of the individual athlete, but Shilo has chosen to not only hide the value of the entire NIL commitment with ‘unknown’ listings for the two entities that were disclosed (Big 21 LLC and/or SS21 LLC), but Shilo also intentionally failed to identify and disclose its NIL individual ownership interest anywhere in the listings.
Sanders’ attorneys contested the claim noting that the transcript of Sanders’ meeting with creditors makes clear that his NIL agreements were always made with Big 21, LLC, and therefore were part of Sanders’ stated asset valuation assets.
“This accusation is based on pure conjecture and media ‘hype,’ without having any basis in fact or reality,” Sanders’ lawyers wrote.
Sanders filed a motion for summary judgment, which was also sealed by the judge. If granted, Darjean would not be able to collect the judgment in Texas. Darjean’s attorney filed a request last week to extend the response deadline to June 24.
(Top photo: Dustin Bradford/Getty Images)
