Shilo Sanders faces escalating legal troubles over more than $164,000 in allegedly unpaid legal fees. Icon Sportswire / Getty Images

The legal landscape surrounding Shilo Sanders is growing more complicated. The former Tampa Bay Buccaneers player and son of Colorado head coach Deion Sanders is already entangled in a bankruptcy process. Now he faces a new lawsuit alleging he owes more than $164,000 in legal fees and interest to a law firm that represented him in other court battles.

The Barnes & Thornburg LLP law firm filed the complaint on Nov. 17 in the Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division, according to documents reviewed by The Athletic. The lawsuit claims that Sanders has not paid for the legal services he received in connection with his personal injury case in Dallas and later during his transition into bankruptcy. The firm is seeking a judgment compelling the player to pay the outstanding amount. USA Today was first to report the news of the latest lawsuit.

According to the complaint, the firm made “multiple attempts to collect the amount outstanding,” but Sanders “has not paid any portions of the amount owed.”

Although the legal action by Barnes & Thornburg is not directly part of the ongoing bankruptcy case, it is connected to the same issues that led Sanders to declare insolvency in October 2023.

According to the lawsuit, the player was notified in August 2024 that the attorney handling his case, Victor Vital, would be leaving the firm. In that communication, he was reminded that he “would remain responsible for any outstanding account balance with respect to those matters.”

Sanders chose to end his relationship with Barnes & Thornburg, but kept Vital as his representative, as the lawyer announced he was joining Haynes Boone.

Reached by The Athletic via phone, Vital said he had no comment on the case at this time.

The 25-year-old Sanders is seeking to use the bankruptcy process to discharge a debt exceeding $11 million, almost all of it stemming from a judgment in favor of John Darjean, a former school security guard who sued him in 2016.

According to court records in Texas and Colorado obtained by The Athletic, Darjean alleged that Sanders assaulted him during an altercation at Triple A Academy in 2015, leaving Darjean with damage to his cervical spine and permanent neurological issues. Darjean accused Sanders of causing the injuries when he attempted to take away the phone of the then-15-year-old.

Although Sanders claimed in pre-trial proceedings that he acted in self-defense, he did not appear when the case went to court in 2022, resulting in a default judgment of more than $11 million. When Darjean began proceedings to collect the amount, Sanders filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection.

However, Darjean is seeking to block the discharge of the debt. In addition, last month, the case trustee filed a new lawsuit accusing Sanders of making unauthorized transfers of approximately $250,000, further complicating his situation.

Shilo Sanders, who played football at Colorado, where he was coached by his father and played alongside his brother Shedeur Sanders, was waived by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in August, less than four months after the team signed him as an undrafted free agent.

Nov 20, 2025

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Denny Alfonso is a trending news writer for The Athletic. An Emmy Award–winning New Yorker, Denny previously covered the NBA, MLB, and MLS for ESPN, where she produced and reported the Soccer in America series, earning a Telly Award. She also covered the Rio Olympics for ESPN. Before joining ESPN, Denny worked as an investigative reporter for NBC Telemundo in Los Angeles and has been a contributor to both Yahoo and The Associated Press in New York.