Shiloh Sanders, a 24-year-old college football player at the University of Colorado, has his fair share of problems.
bankruptcy.
The debt is more than $11 million.
Now, a trial is underway to determine his assets and where they are kept.
How did we get here?
The main cause, according to attorneys’ court filings, is Sanders, the son of Colorado coach Deon Sanders, failing to appear in a civil trial in Texas in March 2022. But the case also raises other questions, including why Sanders didn’t have an attorney at the time and whether Sanders can use bankruptcy court to wipe out his debts as he wishes.
To find the answers and other questions, USA TODAY Sports reached out to experts in bankruptcy law and civil litigation for their opinions: According to records obtained by USA TODAY Sports, the Dallas County court in question didn’t know where to send notice of a trial that Shiloh Sanders missed, which resulted in her receiving a $12 million civil default judgment and filing for bankruptcy last October.
“There are parts of this story that I don’t understand,” said Mechelle Dickerson, a law professor at the University of Texas.
Did Shiloh Sanders get into trouble for not showing up to court?
To an extent, that’s true, but it all stems from an incident in 2015 when Sanders was just 15 years old and allegedly assaulted a high school security guard. The security guard, John Darjeel, claimed he suffered permanent injuries as a result and sued Shiloh Sanders for damages in June 2016.
But the case dragged on in the courts for years. Just before the trial was finally due to begin in March 2022, a Dallas County, Texas, court noted that “Defendant Shiloh Sanders’ most recent address was unknown.” The court attempted to send a trial notice to Shiloh Sanders in February 2022, but it was sent to her old address in South Carolina, more than a year after Sanders transferred to Jackson State University in Mississippi.
Because he never received notice of the trial, he did not appear in court, so without Shiloh Sanders’ objection, the court accepted Darjeel’s case and entered a judgment in favor of the security guard for $12 million, a debt that led Shiloh Sanders to file for bankruptcy last year in an attempt to discharge the debt.
Didn’t he have a lawyer?
The lawyers had provided financial support before April 2020, but then asked to withdraw from the case. “(Shiloh) Sanders has informed us that she is unwilling or unable to continue defending this lawsuit,” they said in court records.
If he had hired an attorney for this case, that attorney would have received notice of trial and would have helped him avoid such a huge default judgment, and would have been able to contest the allegations in court, as Shiloh Sanders and his father previously did through their attorneys in this case.
“In April 2020, Shiloh, then a college student, was no longer able to afford the legal fees incurred in her protracted litigation with Plaintiff,” Shiloh Sanders’ bankruptcy attorneys said in February court documents. “As a result, Shiloh’s attorneys withdrew in April 2020, and Shiloh was left unrepresented in the litigation.”
Her current lawyer also said Shiloh Sanders didn’t know about the $12 million judgment until last year, and that’s puzzling to Dickerson, the law professor.
“Given his father’s wealth, I have to say it’s surprising that he didn’t have legal counsel advising him that he couldn’t ignore the lawsuit,” Dickerson said.
Did Deon Sanders know about this incident?
Yes. Shortly before Dargene filed her lawsuit in 2016, Deion Sanders called Dargene’s claims “bullshit” and said the security guards were “con artists.” Deion Sanders had previously been named as a defendant in Dargene’s lawsuit and accused of parental negligence. In 2017, Deion Sanders walked out of a deposition in the case because he didn’t like the questions he was asked, according to documents filed by Dargene’s lawyers.
“Approximately three to five minutes into the deposition, Defendant Deion Sanders abruptly stood up, refused to answer any further questions, and left the deposition room and the scene without the consent of Plaintiff’s and Defense Counsel,” the filing states.
Deon Sanders subsequently won summary judgment against Darjean and the lawsuit against him was dismissed in January 2019. Shiloh Sanders then left college that year to play football as a freshman at the University of South Carolina, even though Darjean’s lawsuit was still pending.
Can Shiloh Sanders get her debts wiped out in bankruptcy court?
That is what he wants, but it won’t be that easy as Durjan is fighting back against it and trying to retrieve the judgment.
“Debts are permitted to be discharged in bankruptcy to provide relief to honest but unfortunate debtors,” said Angela Litwin, a bankruptcy expert and law professor at the University of Texas.
However, there are exceptions to this, one of which is “intentional and malicious injury.”
“If the bankruptcy court considers or finds that Mr. Darjan’s version of events is true, the willful and malicious discharge exception may apply,” Litwin said.
An attorney for Shiloh Sanders did not immediately respond to a message seeking additional comment.
What’s next?
Shiloh Sanders’ lawyers recently used bankruptcy court proceedings to dispute Darjeel’s claims that the school tried to confiscate Sanders’ cellphone in 2015.
Sanders’ bankruptcy lawyers said in a February court filing that the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services “determined that Plaintiff (Darjean) acted with unreasonable and unjustifiable aggression and exceeded the amount of force that was just and appropriate to the school security officer and had reason to believe that 15-year-old Shiloh Sanders was improperly disciplined by police.” [Plaintiff] “I’m a school security guard.”
That’s evidence that could help Shiloh Sanders when he goes to trial in 2022. The question now is whether it’s too late and he’ll end up saddled with huge debts.
“We of course reserve all rights to raise and assert any and all facts and evidence, whether or not explained or argued in the (Texas) state court proceedings, in order to contest the discharge issue in bankruptcy court,” one of Shiloh’s lawyers wrote to Darjeel’s lawyers in March.
Shiloh Sanders, who enrolled at Colorado as a graduate student, was Colorado’s leading tackler in 2023. According to his filings, his total earnings for 2023 before filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in Colorado in October were $193,713. He plans to play his final collegiate season this fall and then play in the NFL.
The University of Colorado said Shiloh and Deion Sanders declined to comment.
Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer SchrotenboerEmail: bschrotenb@usatoday.com
