Shilo Sanders wants $11 million debt erased. Day 1 of trial showed why it won't be easy
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DENVER – Former Colorado football player Shilo Sanders showed up in bankruptcy court here Monday, Aug. 31, dressed in a dark suit and white-collared shirt, just one day after he released a new rap album with a song entitled “Go out Swinging.”
It was a bold move. This was Day 1 of his trial — a bankruptcy trial where he is trying to get out of more than $11 million in debt after being found liable in a previous civil trial in Texas for beating a guy up.
He didn’t testify Monday. But several other witnesses did via prerecorded video and said Sanders, son of Colorado coach Deion Sanders, did in fact go out swinging at school in 2015 when a security guard at his school, John Darjean, tried to confiscate his phone.
▶ “Shilo hit him with an elbow on his throat, and that’s when he hit him with a two-piece (two punches),” said Deaunte Lee, a former student at the school.
▶ “He punched him right in the face,” said Saundra Haynes, a former front-office clerk at Shilo’s school. Haynes also said, “It was unprovoked.”
▶ "His elbow caught John on the chest,” said Dana Hamilton, a former attorney for Sanders’ school who reviewed video of the incident. Hamilton described Sanders’ actions in the video as “aggressive” and “volatile.”
These were witnesses called by Darjean, the plaintiff who previously went to trial over this same incident and won an $11.89 million default judgment against Sanders in 2022. Sanders is trying to erase that debt in bankruptcy court and will put on his case later in the week. But the first day of trial gave a preview of what is to come.
What happened at the Shilo Sanders bankruptcy trial Monday?
Darjean, 50, and Sanders, 26, sat five chairs away from each other behind the attorneys’ tables but didn’t interact. Darjean got emotional at one point during testimony from a witness who validated his version of events. Sanders’ attorneys raised questions about the credibility of these witnesses and their memories of the incident.
One of Sanders’ attorneys, Victor Vital, also gave an alternate version about what happened that day in 2015, which he’ll try to demonstrate at trial later in the week. He said in his opening statement it was Darjean who “overpowered” Sanders that day at his school when his client was 15 years old.
He turned to Darjean as he accused him of this and told the judge that existing videos of the incident will "answer questions that will be very important to the court" even though the existing videos only shows parts of what happened that day with limited visibility. He asked the judge, Michael Romero, to “find the debt dischargeable” and erase it.
Here is a recap about what happened in Day 1 of the trial and what this case is about with the trial expected to last until Friday.
Why is this trial happening?
Judge Romero went over much of the background of this case to start the trial Monday.
Shilo Sanders filed for bankruptcy in October 2023, hoping to discharge more than $11 million in debt, almost all of it owed to Darjean.
Darjean is the plaintiff and creditor in this case and is a former minor-league outfielder in the New York Yankees organization. He sued Shilo Sanders in 2016, accusing him of assaulting him and permanently injuring him in 2015, when he tried to confiscate his phone at school.
The case didn’t go to trial until 2022, but when it did, Shilo Sanders didn’t show up for it to defend himself. Darjean then presented his case to the judge in his absence and won an $11.89 million default judgment against him as a result.
The issue at trial now is whether Sanders can discharge the debt or remain the hook for it. Darjean wants all he’s owed and is arguing Sanders shouldn’t be allowed a discharge because the debt stems from a “willful and malicious injury” — a specific exception for discharges in bankruptcy law. By contrast, Sanders has argued he acted in self-defense, not with malicious intent, and therefore should be allowed to pursue a discharge.
The judge will have to decide who’s right, based on a preponderance of the evidence for that day in 2015.
Both sides gave opening statements
Both sides delivered opening remarks that gave different versions of the incident from Sept. 17, 2015, at Focus Learning Academy in Dallas. Darjean’s attorney, Ori Raphael, went first and noted how Shilo Sanders’ version of what happened has changed over time, including when he said he never hit anybody.
“For 10 years the defense (claimed) he never touched a man, a blow he swears he never struck,” Raphael told the judge “If that’s the case, it cannot be self-defense. No one accidentally acts in self-defense… And if today he changes his tune, his credibility, which is also on trial, is shattered.”
Raphael noted Darjean was taken by ambulance to the hospital after the incident. Sanders, he said, “is afraid of responsibility.”
In Sanders’ defense, Vital never tried to suggest Shilo Sanders “already won” the case, as his father Deion Sanders told reporters at a news conference in Boulder Aug. 24. He instead tried to counter Darjean’s version of what happened.
“The plaintiff escalated the encounter using disproportionate physical force against a 15-year-old boy,” Vital told the judge. “The evidence is going to show he manhandled my client.”
Darjean got emotional at one point
No live witnesses were called to the stand Monday. Raphael instead called witnesses who previously testified on video and played those videos for the judge, including videos of testimony from Darjean’s previous lawsuit in Texas from around 2017-18. One of those older videos featured the founder of the school where the incident took place, Leroy McClure.
After an investigation into the incident by an attorney for the school, McClure signed a letter that absolved Darjean of blame in the case.
“I found him to do nothing wrong,” McClure testified on the video.
Darjean dabbed tissues at his eyes during his testimony.
McClure testified he ran into Shilo Sanders minutes after the incident with Darjean.
“He was very adamant about not giving up that phone,” McClure testified. “In fact, he still had the phone in his hand. The way he was carrying himself, I thought there would be another confrontation that would have been between Shilo Sanders and myself.”
The attorney in the video asked him why he thought that.
“He was so angry.”
The trial continues Tuesday with more video testimony and possibly live witnesses.
Deion Sanders commented about Shilo's trial Monday, Aug. 31
Deion Sanders won't testify at this trial until Friday, if he testifies at all. He did talk about it at Colorado's practice Monday on a video posted on his eldest son Deion Jr.'s YouTube channel. He said Shilo Sanders visited recently to get several suits to wear.
"Praying for my baby that that that people see what really transpired,” Deion Sanders said in the video.
He faced the camera and appeared to address those who might doubt the family's version of events.
“We going to forgive you for your judgment," he said.
Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. Email: bschrotenb@usatoday.com
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Shilo Sanders wants $11 million debt erased. Day 1 of trial showed why it won't be easy
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