Published September 5, 2026 08:19 AM

Thursday was a good day for Deion Sanders, on two counts. First, his Colorado team upset Georgia Tech to start the season 1-0. Second, the judge presiding over Shilo Sanders’s bankruptcy trial decided that Deion wouldn’t be required to testify in the case.

Via Brent Schrotenboer of USA Today, the presiding judge declared on Thursday that Deion was released from his subpoena.

The day didn’t go as well in court for Shilo. As Schrotenboer explains, a witness called by Shilo’s lawyers offered contradictory testimony on a key question in the case of whether injuries inflicted by Shilo on John Darjean, a security guard at his school, were “willful and malicious.”

The witness, Ruda Nash James, testified that she saw Darjean choking Shilo. During the testimony, Darjean’s lawyer played a recording of a phone call between James and Shilo’s mother from the day of the 2015 incident.

“Did you see his hand around Shilo’s neck?” Pilar Sanders asked James.

“I didn’t see the neck part,” James said. “I didn’t see all that.”

Oops.

Separately, Shilo’s lawyer was stopped by the judge (who will be deciding the case) from questioning Darjean about the possibility that his injuries were the result of his baseball career. As the judge pointed out, the current case isn’t about whether the fight with Shilo caused injuries that culminated in an $11.89 million judgment that created the debt Shilo hopes to discharge through bankruptcy. It’s only about whether the injuries were willfully or maliciously inflicted.

The biggest bit of drama on Thursday happened when Darjean collapsed after testifying, apparently due to his chronic pain.

It appears that the case was paused on Friday. Eventually, the judge will decide whether Shilo will, or won’t, carry the $11.89 million debt moving forward.

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Deion Sanders didn't have to testify in the Shilo Sanders bankruptcy trial

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