Shilo Sanders’ bankruptcy trial wrapped up Friday in Denver after five days that pulled in emotional testimony, a hospital scare, and a contradiction that undercut his own defense. When closing arguments ended, nothing had actually been decided.
Judge Michael E. Romero now has to sort through it all and rule on whether Shilo Sanders gets the fresh start he filed for, or walks away still owing $11.89 million.
That number goes back to 2015, when Sanders, then 15, got into a fight with a security guard named John Darjean at his school in Dallas. Sanders never showed up to defend himself at the 2022 civil trial that followed, and the court entered a default judgment against him for $11.89 million.
He filed for bankruptcy in 2023, hoping to wipe that debt clean. Whether he can comes down to one legal question: was the injury he caused “willful and malicious,” the kind of harm bankruptcy law won’t let a person walk away from.
Getting to that question took a toll on nearly everyone involved.
A Trial Full of Twists
The most jarring moment came Thursday, when Darjean collapsed in the courtroom after finishing more than two hours on the stand. He’d testified in pain throughout the trial, at one point lying down in the back of the room just to get through it. He was taken to the hospital by ambulance and released later that day.
Sanders’ own witness didn’t help his case much either. Ruda Nash James, an administrator at the school in 2015, testified she saw Darjean choking Sanders during the altercation, the same account Sanders has stuck to for years. But Darjean’s attorney, Ori Raphael, played a recording of a phone call from that day between James and Sanders’ mother, Pilar.
“Did you see his hand around Shilo’s neck?” Pilar Sanders asked. “I didn’t see the neck part,” James replied. “I didn’t see all that.”
That contradiction became the moment both sides kept circling back to. Raphael leaned into it hard in his closing argument.
“Responsibility is a word you’re never going to hear from the defense, because he never accepts it,” Raphael said.
Judge Romero didn’t offer much of a hint about which way he was leaning. “These cases are tough,” he told both sides after closing arguments. “They’re very, very tough and very difficult, highly emotional.” A ruling isn’t expected for months, with some estimates pointing to sometime between November and January.
Deion Didn’t Have to Testify
There was one small mercy for the Sanders family buried in Friday’s short docket. Deion Sanders had been subpoenaed to testify virtually in his son’s case, but the judge excused him before he ever had to log on.
Deion Sanders sends a prayer to his son Shilo, who starts his trial today 😮👀
The Sanders family denies allegations from a security guard at Shilo’s old school accusing him of assaulting him in 2015 when he tried to confiscate his phone, and they will be risking $11 million… pic.twitter.com/d9ahLz17Sa
— Slime🐍 (@ItsKingSlime) August 31, 2026
“Today my office has been inundated with calls asking for confirmation on when Deion Sanders will appear in court,” Romero said, according to Pro Football Talk. “Mr. Sanders has been excused from this trial and will not appear today.”
It capped a good 24 hours for the Colorado coach overall. His Buffaloes had just knocked off Georgia Tech to open the season, and now he was free of a subpoena that would have put him on the stand in his own son’s bankruptcy case. Shilo wasn’t so lucky. He still has to wait, like everyone else, for Judge Romero to decide what happens to the $11.89 million hanging over him.