John Darjean was a security officer at Focus Academies in Dallas, where Shilo attended the Focus Academies high school Triple A Academy. According to legal documents obtained by Westword, in 2015 Shilo allegedly attacked Darjean while Darjean was executing a disciplinary action against Shilo after he was being disruptive in class.
Darjean’s complaint for non-discharge of debt filed in United States Bankruptcy Court for Colorado on January 29 recounts the incident. Allegedly, after Darjean had escorted him to in-school suspension for violating the school’s no-phone policy, Shilo called his mother, Pilar Sanders.
According to court documents, one of Deion Sanders's assistant coaches came to Darjean's office, where Shilo had been taken after violating the no-phone policy; that coach had Deion on the phone and passed the phone to Darjean. When Deion heard his son was on the phone with Pilar, his ex-wife since 2013, he told Darjean to take the phone from Shilo.
“You're my brother in Christ, I need you to go get the phone...as soon as you get the phone from him, give me a call back,” Deion allegedly told Darjean, according to the January 29 filing.
At that point, the filing says, Shilo slammed his elbow into Darjean’s chest and continued to hit Darjean after he fell. Darjean was taken to the hospital in an ambulance.
In Shilo's legal response filed February 29 in bankruptcy court, he denies or says he lacks sufficient knowledge of many of the allegations related to Darjean’s account of the incident, including whether his father instructed Darjean to take the phone. However, Shilo does admit that the altercation between the two of them happened in September 2015.
Darjean filed a lawsuit in Dallas District Court in 2016, claiming he had “sustained severe and permanent injuries including a broken neck, damage to his cervical spine, permanent neurological injuries and irreversible incontinence,” according to a January 2024 filing.
That case went to trial in 2022, but Shilo did not appear for the trial, according to Darjean’s filing. Still, the trial court found Shilo had committed assault and battery, and the state court ruled he should pay Darjean $11.89 million.
That amount has not been paid, according to Darjean's attorneys. Shilo filed for bankruptcy in October 2023, days after Darjean had planned to appoint a receiver to try to recover the money, the former security guard says in legal documents.
In his February response to Darjean’s filing, Shilo argues that he was acting in self-defense and that Darjean’s actions led to the incident, so the claim for relief on Darjean’s part should not stand.
Shilo's attorneys have filed a motion for summary judgment. If Shilo's motion is granted, Darjean would not be able to collect on the Texas judgment. On May 22, Darjean's attorneys filed a request for more time to respond.
NIL Earnings Come Into Question
Darjean’s January filing alleges Shilo's financial disclosures thus far do not represent a complete picture of his assets, particularly as it concerns name, image and likeness (NIL) deals he has participated in as an athlete. The 24-year-old Sanders was a starting safety for the University of Colorado in 2023, where he will return to play under his father next season.Shilo disclosed just $320,477 to his name in an updated filing in December 2023, mainly from a Mercedes he drives and a Robin Hood investing account. Previously, he had disclosed $477,881 in assets, as his Robin Hood account had more money in October 2023.
An October 23 disclosure also included $75,000 worth of necklaces owned by Shilo, but that was amended in December to remove those necklaces. On October 28, the CU football team reported that its locker room was ransacked during an away game at UCLA, with many items of jewelry reported stolen; high school students have been identified as having entered the locker room without permission, and some stolen items were returned to CU athletes.
In his February legal response, Shilo's lawyers said the alteration of his jewelry ownership did not indicate any wrongdoing, as Darjean’s filing had suggested. Darjean’s filing also takes issue with the fact that Shilo did not document how much his other possessions are worth.
“Contrary to the schedules, Shilo has admitted acquiring vast amounts of high-end and expensive clothing,” the filing reads. “For example, on his YouTube Channel posted on May 4, 2023, he states, ‘Alright we at the Louis (Vuitton) Store I am trying to spend at least $50,000 today.’”
None of the items displayed on Shilo's social media were documented in the disclosure, the filing notes. In response, Shilo's attorneys argue that he is not obligated to itemize and give value to individual items of personal property.
Court disclosures include the existence of two LLCs called Big 21 and SS21 under Shilo, but they don’t list revenue streams for those LLCs or what his role is in them, Darjean's filing continues.
“At the meeting of creditors, Shilo claimed to possess little to no knowledge of the formation or workings of Big 21, LLC and SS21, LLC except that Shilo is the sole owner of each entity and that the entities are the purported vehicles for contracting the paid promotional appearances and/or Name, Image, and Likeness (“NIL”) transactions of Shilo,” the January 29 filing says.
Darjean’s filing further objects to the failure to mention various NIL partnerships observed publicly, such as Instagram promotions with Kentucky Fried Chicken, TurboTax and Oikos yogurt. It also objects to Shilo not mentioning his family’s KFC ads on television and other paid partnerships Shilo has posted about on Instagram, TikTok or YouTube.
“On the surface, this omission is as glaring as it is preposterous because it is Shilo’s very NIL value and/or public value that are the source of the non-stop paid engagements and social media appearances,” the filing says. “The entire underpinning of the NIL concept is the value of the individual athlete, but Shilo chose not only to hide the value of the entire NIL endeavor with the ‘unknown' listings for the two of the entities that were disclosed (Big 21 LLC and/or SS21 LLC), but Shilo intentionally failed to identify and disclose his individual NIL property interest anywhere in the schedules.”
The filing goes on to call NIL Shilo's “most significant and highly valuable asset.”
In response, Shilo admitted he did not disclose these instances and said that he is the sole owner of Big 21 LLC and SS21 LLC, but he denied improperly failing to disclose contracts with those companies related to NIL.
Currently, the two sides are going back and forth on how much information in the case should be public record. A protective order over personal information and testimony was issued in Texas during the previous legal proceedings between the two parties.
“Darjean has further continued to violate the State Court Protective Order by repeatedly and continuously disseminating information and documents subject to the State Court Protective Order through social media platforms, including, but not limited to, uploading video content to YouTube, including a self-made documentary called ‘Prime Time for Truth,’” Shilo's filing alleges.
The video is over an hour long and allegedly includes information that was meant to be covered by the Texas protective order. Darjean’s legal team filed a response on April 29 accusing Shilo and his legal team of trying to violate Darjean’s free speech rights and arguing for a “complete gag order.”
On May 16, Bankruptcy Judge Michael Romero had the court clerk seal Darjean’s January 29 complaint, two motions related to a motion to strike Darjean’s jury demands and Shilo's motion for summary judgment. Westword had accessed and downloaded the then-public document of Darjean’s complaint in April.
Lawyers on both sides did not respond to requests for comment.
