In response to a question last month about his son’s ongoing bankruptcy case, Colorado football coach Deion Sanders made a request to the USA TODAY Sports reporter who asked him about it.
“I want you to do this for me,” the Pro Football Hall of Famer said then. “I want you to do your homework and do a whole investigation on that and then write that. I mean the whole complete investigation on what truly happened.”
USA TODAY Sports already had been doing that and previously published other reports about it and the incident that led to it in 2015. But in response to Sanders’ urging, USA TODAY Sports reexamined records and sought further information from officials who looked into the case involving his son, Shilo, who filed for bankruptcy last October with more than $11 million in debt.
As a result, USA TODAY Sports found that at least five agencies or institutions with access to witnesses and evidence in the 2015 case made conclusions about it – Dallas police, Shilo’s school, an insurance company, Texas child protective services and a civil court in Dallas.
What did those agencies and institutions conclude?
None of them favored Shilo Sanders, now a standout safety for his father at Colorado.
Four of those five official inquiries instead favored John Darjean, the school security guard who claimed he suffered permanent and severe spinal and nerve injuries after Shilo allegedly assaulted him in 2015, when Shilo was a 15-year-old ninth grader at FOCUS Academies in Dallas.
The other of those five investigations initially sided with Shilo but then obtained information that forced it to reverse its conclusion and instead ruled that fault was “unable to be determined.”
USA TODAY Sports also solicited further clarification from Shilo’s attorney in Texas but didn’t get a response.
Below is a summary of how each of the five inquiries ended up after Darjean said Shilo threw a roundhouse elbow into his upper torso when Darjean was trying to confiscate his phone at school. Darjean sued Shilo in civil court to recover for his injuries and won a default judgment of $11.89 million in 2022 – a massive debt for Shilo that led him to file for bankruptcy in hopes of eliminating it.
The bankruptcy case remains pending and still could hinge on that incident in 2015. Deion Sanders has said Darjean’s claims are false and portrayed it as a money grab. Shilo Sanders said he acted in self-defense after Darjean assaulted him. Shilo’s attorneys also have questioned whether Darjean’s injuries were pre-existing.
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What Dallas police said about the Shilo Sanders case
Dallas police provided this information when asked about it by USA TODAY Sports.
“On September 17, 2015 at about 11:55 AM, Dallas police responded to a call for service in the 2500 block of W Ledbetter Drive. The preliminary investigation determined a security officer and teen were in an argument when the teen hit the security officer. Dallas Fire Rescue responded and transported the security officer to a local hospital for further medical treatment.”
Dallas police said the incident was referred to a grand jury, but there is no public record of any criminal charge or indictment.
Court records show that a day after that incident, Shilo Sanders was involved in a separate incident at school with another student and was taken that day to a juvenile detention center in Dallas. Court records also show Darjean underwent spinal surgery a few days after the incident.
What the school found
Darjean initially was suspended with pay pending the outcome of an internal investigation. Five days after the incident, the CEO and founder of the school, Leroy McClure, wrote a letter to Darjean saying the suspension was being lifted and Darjean was being reinstated effectively immediately.
“Video evidence supports your statement and the statement of the nearest employee in the area,” the school’s findings stated in the letter. “You were trying to take the student’s cell phone away from him. You were struck in the upper chest area by the student’s elbow. You then attempted to restrain the student against the wall. The student pushed back against you, moving both of you back off the wall. You attempted to restrain the student a second time against the wall and then moved the student to the floor to restrain him. At that point other employees entered the area to assist.”
It’s not clear what video evidence was used to clear Darjean. In 2016, TMZ published some security video evidence that only shows a part of the incident. But Darjean has said there was other video evidence that supports him – video that was deleted by a computer technician around the same time that Deion Sanders approached that technician to obtain it.
USA TODAY Sports recently contacted McClure, the school CEO, and asked what the video showed.
“I would have to refer you back to the letter I signed back in 2015,” McClure said. “Yes I did my due diligence in looking at different angles before I signed the letter. I have nothing to add nor delete from the letter. The signed letter stands on its own. I have no idea where the video may be.”
What Texas child protection services found
The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services got involved in this case to determine if Shilo Sanders had been abused as a minor at school.
On Oct. 30, 2015, the agency initially found that there was “reason to believe” that abuse or neglect had occurred against Shilo in this case based on a preponderance of the evidence. In February, Shilo Sanders’ attorneys in bankruptcy court even used this initial ruling to try to convince a judge to dismiss Darjean’s complaint against Sanders there.
But that initial ruling was not the final word in that case and was based largely on false information from two school officials who said Darjean was being fired over the incident, according to court records. McClure, the school CEO, testified in a pretrial deposition afterwards that Darjean never was terminated and that this false information came from two officials who had personal conflicts with Darjean and hadn’t been authorized to make such determinations. McClure also testified that he considered the two school officials to be a “liability,” and both were let go from the school in 2016.
Records obtained by USA TODAY Sports show that the agency’s initial ruling then was reversed after two additional witness statements were obtained that corroborated Darjean.
As a result, the disposition of the case was changed to “Unable to be Determined.”
Another odd twist is that Deion Sanders initially told the agency’s investigator, Jordan Ham, that he didn’t suspect Darjean used excessive force in restraining Shilo and that he thought Darjean handled the situation appropriately, according to court records. He said so 12 days after the incident in the presence of his attorney, according to Ham. But Deion Sanders later disavowed that, saying he didn’t witness the incident and couldn’t have known.
What workers comp insurance found
Employees can file a workers compensation insurance claim when injured on the job to help pay for medical bills and a portion of lost wages. But such claims are not automatically approved for benefits. The insurance company can investigate to make sure the claim is legitimate and also can deny a claim if it finds that the injury was caused by the employee’s attempt to “unlawfully injure another person,” according to Texas law.
That is not what the insurance company found in Darjean’s case. An independent doctor reviewed his medical records and determined he had compensable injuries. The company also obtained records from the school about what happened.
“As a result of the filing of the workers’ compensation claim, Utica National Insurance Company paid both medical benefits to or on behalf of John Darjean and indemnity benefits,” said a sworn affidavit from the company’s custodian of records from July 2021.
The affidavit said the company had paid $112,000 in medical benefits at that time, plus $99,000 in indemnity benefits.
The doctor did note a pre-existing condition with Darjean, who had undergone another surgery before the incident, in 2014. But he said the injury from the incident in 2015 made his physical condition far worse.
“The accident resulted in cervical myelopathy and cervical cord compression and urine incontinence because there was a spinal stenosis,” the doctor wrote to the Texas Department of Insurance in 2016. “In other words, there was what l would call an aggravation of a pre-existing condition.”
What the civil court found
Darjean initially sued Shilo and both of his parents in 2016, but by early 2019, both parents had been dropped from the lawsuit, leaving Shilo as the sole remaining defendant in 2019, when he went to college as a freshman at South Carolina. At that point, Shilo had defended himself in the lawsuit for years. He even had filed counterclaims and testified in a pretrial deposition.
But then he elected to drop his attorneys in April 2020 without hiring new ones. Shilo was “unwilling or unable to continue funding” his defense, according to his attorneys then.
Without an attorney to represent him, trial notices then were sent to his email address and his old home address at South Carolina, even though he left there after the 2020 season to transfer to Jackson State.
Then when the case finally did go to trial in March 2022, he didn’t show up to defend himself, leading to the $11.89 million default judgment against him.
The court issued findings of fact and conclusions of law after hearing evidence in the case.
“On September 17, 2015, Shilo Sanders did in fact cause physical harm and injuries to John Darjean by assaulting him,” the court stated. “The Court finds that Shilo Sanders’ actions were the proximate cause of John Darjean’s injuries/damages. The Court further finds that Shilo Sander’s actions were a substantial factor in bringing about the physical and mental injuries sustained by John Darjean, without which such injuries and damages would not have occurred.”
The question now is whether the bankruptcy court will take Shilo’s side after all these other agencies and institutions did not. If he succeeds this time, the court could essentially erase that judgment debt and let him start over with relatively minor damage to his bank account.
A University of Colorado spokesman said Deion and Shilo Sanders were ‘unable to comment’ on the bankruptcy case while it remains pending. The Buffaloes open their second season under Sanders on Aug. 29 vs. North Dakota State.
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Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. Email: bschrotenb@usatoday.com
