Steve Harvey Dumped Victim in Shilo Sanders’ $11.8M Lawsuit After Deion’s Controversial Press Conference

Little did John Darjean know that a regular day on his job would flip his life upside down. The former Yankees prospect and the security official at Focus Academics, Dallas, escorted then-15-year-old Shilo Sanders to an in-school suspension after he was found violating the no-phone policy. As Shilo called his mother, Deion Sanders got in touch with Darjean, asking him to stop the mother-son conversation. He followed instructions but was met with a hostile Shilo, who knocked him out. Now, nine years later, Darjean has revealed the repercussions of that incident and Deion Sanders’ controversial claims.

After Shilo Sanders’ alleged assault on John Darjean, the latter filed a lawsuit against the now Colorado Buffaloes safety. Per court records, Darjean “sustained severe and permanent injuries including a broken neck, damage to his cervical spine, permanent neurological injuries and irreversible incontinence.” In 2022, the court awarded Darjean $11.89 million in damages, which Shilo hasn’t paid yet. However, in a conversation with Jason Whitlock on Fearless, the former security official revealed that when he was in the hospital, Shilo had called Child Protective Services on him.

He revealed how the services started their investigation. At the time, when their representative, Jordan Ham, interviewed Deion Sanders in front of his lawyer, he had “nothing but nice things to say about me. He said, ‘John Darjean didn’t do anything wrong. If my son keeps this up, he’ll be in prison.’” This happened two weeks after the incident. However, in a subsequent deposition, Sanders denied ever taking Darjean’s side. And that wasn’t the only confession he denied.

During Sanders’ interview with CPS, Jordan Ham reported, “Mr. Sanders stated that Shilo reportedly struck Mr. Darjean in the chest and began resisting away from Mr. Darjean.” When the deposition lawyer read this statement to Deion and asked if he told Ham this, he said, “I don’t recall that.” Considering the interview happened two weeks after the altercation, you would think Sanders talked to Shilo about it. Well, Coach Prime admitted to having done that while talking to Ham, but during the deposition, he repeated, “I don’t recall that.” But that wasn’t all.

Deion Sanders reached out to TMZ, claiming everything John Darjean said was a lie. He, in fact, was the aggressor and instigated the fight with Shilo. When one of his athletes caught wind of the interview, they informed Darjean. It’s important to note that the security official was a baseball coach at the Triple A Academy as well as the Steve Harvey Camp. As a result of the “lies” that Deion told in the interview with TMZ, Darjean “lost so much,” so much so that he had to sever his ties with his employers. However, the biggest loss was his association with Steve Harvey Camp.

The people back at the Steve Harvey camp said, “Your services are no longer needed because we saw this on TMZ about you.” Darjean recalled how he was fired: “We have to step away from you. I know you’re our baseball director at the Steve Harvey program, but your services are no longer needed.” The worst part was that Deion Sanders allegedly manipulated the evidence video, as Darjean claimed when Deion Sanders confessed the opposite in his interview with TMZ.

Deion Sanders and the evidence controversy

Darjean claimed in the same interview that Deion Sanders reached out to the school’s CEO to get his hands on the security footage that showed the incident play out. But when they denied him access, Darjean said that Coach Prime contacted the IT guy and got them to “steal” the video evidence from the school.

In fact, the former Yankees prospect even mentioned that Sanders admitted this during his deposition, saying, “I got him to take it on the down low.” Explaining the chain of events, Darjean said that after Deion was denied access, “he calls the IT guy and says, ‘I need you to take all the videos.’ And the IT guy takes the videos.” The only remaining evidence was a video of Darjean pinning Shilo Sanders against the wall and taking him down. However, none of the others that showed Shilo attacking him made it.

After the TMZ interview, when Darjean filed the lawsuit in 2016, the case was taken to Dallas County Court. But because of insufficient evidence, it was left in limbo. Now, after eight years, Shilo Sanders has lost the lawsuit. Per reports, he didn’t show up for the trial, leading to a default judgment against him. According to the court records, the notices didn’t reach him or were sent to the wrong address. Moreover, he didn’t have an attorney representing him when the notices were sent.

There’s also the case of Shilo Sanders misrepresenting his assets. Per On3, his NIL valuation is $1.1 million. However, last December, he divulged assets worth $320,477. In October, however, his assets were valued at $477,881. Darjean even argued that Shilo didn’t disclose “vast amounts of high-end and expensive clothing” or his NIL deals with different companies. In addition, the Buffaloes safety has also filed for bankruptcy.