Deion Sanders found himself at the center of his son’s legal battle when a Boulder County deputy came searching for him on the University of Colorado campus earlier this month. Sanders was being served civil papers requiring him to testify in Shilo Sanders’ bankruptcy trial. Shilo has filed for bankruptcy with more than $11 million in debt following a 2022 civil judgment. But, according to his father, Shilo won the case in the past.

During a press conference on August 24, as reported by the ‘The Pregame Network,’ Coach Prime was asked what advice he would give his sons, Shilo and Shedeur Sanders.

“You know Shilo won this case previously, right?” Sanders said. “Anybody know that? Raise your hand if you know that, if you knew that, that Shilo got awarded money for this. OK… Just check it out. I can’t wait till it’s over and he gets to tell his story. He already won this case, you know? Yeah.”

The case mentioned here refers to the incident that happened back in 2015, when Deion Sanders asked former security guard John Darjean to confiscate Shilo Sanders’ phone at school.

Get the Essentially CFB Newsletter. Rivalries, rankings, recruiting, coaching moves, and game action nationwide — your complete college football briefing.

According to Darjean, he was assaulted by Shilo Sanders and suffered a permanent injury, which led him to sue Shilo in 2016. The case went to trial in 2022, but Shilo Sanders did not show up, resulting in an $11.89 million default judgment against him.

What exactly is the “win” Deion Sanders was referring to? The Colorado head coach may have been alluding to a confidential settlement Shilo reached with third parties in 2019, after he sued his former school, Focus Learning Academy, and its founder, Leroy McClure. According to USA Today, Coach Prime had made a similar claim in 2024. 

However, the judge clarified that settling and dismissing those specific claims “does not affect any other pending claims, including but not limited to those claims by Plaintiff John Darjean.” In short, despite the truce between the third parties, Shilo Sanders was still required to appear in court and attend the hearing.

However, after facing an $11.89 million claim, Sanders filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in October 2023, roughly a year later, in an attempt to escape the debt after Darjean sought to collect the judgment. The central issue at the current trial is whether Sanders can legally have that debt discharged.

With the trial set for August 31 through September 4, Darjean’s attorney subpoenaed Deion Sanders to testify. The schedule overlaps Colorado’s September 3 opener against Georgia Tech, with the team departing on September 1. This raised questions about how Sanders would handle the situation, to which he gave a vague answer.

“Is that a distraction?” Sanders said when asked Monday about the subpoena. “Dude, you think that’s my first subpoena? Like, when you have it, when you him, when you that, you get sued. You have off-the-field foolishness that if someone really sat down and explained it to you, you would say, ‘You got to be kidding.'”

Will Deion Sanders be present for the hearing? We don’t know as of yet, but his attorney in Denver, Harvey Steinberg, has moved to quash the subpoena. However, it’s up to Judge Michael Romer to decide whether Deion Sanders will testify.