Shilo Sanders, son of Deion “Coach Prime” Sanders may be on the NFL’s radar when it comes to the upcoming 2025 Draft, but it appears Mercedes-Benz is also keeping its eyes on him. And it’s not for a good reason. Don’t worry, we’ll explain.
According to court documents filed on Tuesday per the DailyMail, the luxury car company is seeking past due payments owed to them from Shilo for his car, of which he purchased in May 2023. The company alleges that the college football star is “past due for $6,877 on his monthly payments from December through February.” Shilo also reportedly still has an outstanding balance of $97,239, even though the trade-in value for the car is $97,000.
Mercedes’ issue with collecting the money owed from Shilo also deepened thanks to the Chapter 7 bankruptcy he filed in October 2023, which put an “automatic stay or hold” on all debt collection efforts. Despite that, the car company is petitioning the court to allow them to still get what’s rightfully theirs.
What makes this even more interesting is that Shilo continued to make payments on the car even after he filed for bankruptcy but he recently defaulted—thus causing Mercedes to try to come and collect.
“Debtor (Sanders) indicated an intent to retain the motor vehicle and reaffirm the obligation. Debtor has not accomplished this intention,” the documents read in part.
Now if you’ve gotten this far and are curious as to how the son of someone so popular like Coach Prime can’t afford to make good on simple car payments, then you’ll be glad you stuck around. The reason why Shilo can’t make the payments and filed for bankruptcy is because he’s trying to pay off an even bigger debt that stems from an incident all the way back in 2015 between him and a security guard at his old school, John Darjean.
USA Today has more:
Darjean said Shilo caused him severe and permanent injuries as he tried to confiscate his phone at school. Shilo was only 15 years old at the time and said he acted in self-defense and that Darjean was the aggressor. But Darjean sued Shilo for damages.
In an unexpected move, Shilo never showed up to court in December 2022 and as a result, received a default judgment against him of $11.89 million. He’s been paying on that ever since.
But now, since it looks like he’s trying to get out from under all the debt he owes but both Mercedes and Darjean—who’s also filed two complaints in order to prevent the debt from being dropped—aren’t going to let Shilo skirt by without paying.