Jackie Robinson’s Contracts: Fraud Case, SEC Seizure, and Settlement

The original contracts Jackie Robinson signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Montreal Royals have been locked in federal custody since 2019, and the legal dispute over Jackie Robinson’s contracts is still unresolved in mid-2026. The documents were seized as part of a Securities and Exchange Commission fraud case against the Las Vegas businessman who owned them, and three parties — the Jackie Robinson Foundation, a group of defrauded investors, and the SEC — have been fighting over what happens to them next.

The Two Documents at the Center of the Case

There are two contracts. The first is Robinson’s October 23, 1945 agreement with the Montreal Royals, which made him the first Black player in modern organized baseball and paid him $600 a month for the 1946 season plus a $3,500 signing bonus.¹ The second is the four-page Brooklyn Dodgers contract dated April 11, 1947, signed by Robinson, general manager Branch Rickey, and National League president Ford Frick, with a $5,000 salary for that season.² Together they have been estimated at $5 million or more at auction.³

How the Contracts Got Pulled Into a Fraud Case

In 1952, Dodgers president Walter O’Malley and Branch Rickey loaned the contracts to the Brooklyn Hall of Records for a public exhibition.⁴ They ended up at the James A. Kelly Institute for Local Historical Studies, which moved to St. Francis College in Brooklyn in 1974, where professor Arthur J. Konop had custody of them for decades. When Konop died in 2009, his widow and son sold the contracts in 2012 to Gotta Have It Collectibles for $750,000.³ Whether Konop ever had legal authority to treat the documents as his own property, as opposed to the Dodgers’, became a central question in the later litigation.⁵

In 2013, Las Vegas entrepreneur Mykalai Kontilai bought the contracts through his company, Collector’s Coffee Inc. (also known as Collector’s Cafe), for $2 million.¹ He then used them as the centerpiece of an investment pitch for an online auction platform, claiming the documents were worth $36 million. Federal authorities later alleged Kontilai raised more than $23 million from investors and misappropriated roughly $6.1 million for personal expenses.⁶

The SEC Seizure

The SEC sued Collector’s Coffee in 2019 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (Case No. 19-cv-04355).⁷ The court ordered the U.S. Marshals Service to seize the contracts in Las Vegas and store them in a secure facility, and that is where they have remained ever since.¹ The SEC alleged Kontilai falsely told investors his company owned 100% of the contracts, inflated their value, and concealed the fact that the Dodgers were contesting ownership.

A jury found Kontilai and Collector’s Coffee liable for securities fraud. On March 14, 2025, Judge Victor Marrero entered a final judgment requiring them to disgorge nearly $22 million in profits plus prejudgment interest, with civil penalties of about $23.3 million against Kontilai and $24.6 million against the company. Relief defendant Veronica Kontilai was ordered to disgorge $332,522.⁸⁹¹⁰

Who Claims the Contracts

With Kontilai’s fraud case resolved, the harder question is who actually owns the paper. Three groups have asserted claims:

The Jackie Robinson Foundation. The Los Angeles Dodgers asserted ownership in 2019 and then transferred their interest to the foundation through two Deeds of Gift. The foundation wants the contracts for its museum in Lower Manhattan.¹¹
The Holders. A group of lenders including SDJ Investments, Abode Investments, and Darren Sivertsen loaned $6 million to Kontilai’s company using the contracts as collateral, and claim a first-position perfected secured interest in them.¹¹
The SEC. The agency is owed tens of millions in civil penalties and disgorgement and has a stake in how any proceeds are distributed.

The Dodgers’ claim is not airtight. The team did not list the contracts as assets during the franchise’s 2011 bankruptcy, and no one from the organization sought their return for nearly 70 years. U.S. Magistrate Judge Gabriel Gorenstein noted that the Dodgers could have filed a replevin action at any point but never did, and he concluded that a jury could find the team “voluntarily shared” the documents, effectively abandoning them. In May 2023, he recommended denying summary judgment for both sides and sending the ownership question to a jury.⁵⁴

The Proposed Settlement

Rather than let a jury sort it out, the parties have been negotiating a split. As of an April 4, 2025 stakeholder meeting, the proposed deal would give the 1947 Dodgers contract to the Jackie Robinson Foundation outright, while the 1945 Montreal Royals contract would be auctioned to raise money for the defrauded investors.³ The Royals contract is estimated at $4 million to $6 million.¹²

Under the draft distribution, auction proceeds from the Royals contract would be split among the Collector’s Cafe investors (72.5%), the SEC (24.2%), and Goldin Auctions (3.3%). The foundation would also provide a portion of the 1947 contract’s value back to the investors to help offset their losses.¹²³ The settlement has not been finalized. Judge Marrero has ordered a running series of status updates through May 2025, June 2025, October 2025, January 2026, and April 2026 as the written agreement is worked out, and has asked the SEC to clarify the contracts’ value and how their proceeds fit the broader distribution.¹³

Where the Dispute Stands Now

Both contracts remain with the U.S. Marshals Service, where they have been for more than seven years. The Jackie Robinson Museum in Lower Manhattan, which opened in September 2022, displays only reproductions.¹ The SEC’s final judgment stands, with asset freezes in place until the penalties and disgorgement are satisfied.⁸ Whether the originals leave federal custody for a museum display case and an auction block depends on final court approval of the settlement, which, after years of status reports, has yet to come.

1
ESPN. Jackie Robinson Original Contracts Legal Dispute
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ABC News. Jackie Robinson Contracts Brooklyn Dodgers Montreal Royals
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Los Angeles Times. Jackie Robinson Dodgers Contracts
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U.S. District Court, S.D.N.Y. SEC v. Collector’s Coffee Inc., 19 Civ. 4355 – Docket 1228
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Sportico. Jackie Robinson Collectibles
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8 News Now. Las Vegas Man Who Fled to Russia During Fraud Investigation Sentenced
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Bloomberg Law. Jackie Robinson Foundation Cleared Over Memorabilia Agreement
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SEC. Final Judgment – SEC v. Collector’s Coffee Inc.
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U.S. Department of Justice. President and CEO of Las Vegas-Based Company Sentenced
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News 3 Las Vegas. Las Vegas Man Gets Prison Time for Role in Investment Fraud Scheme
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vLex. U.S. SEC v. Collector’s Coffee Inc.
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CLLCT. Jackie Robinson Historic Contracts Still in Hands of Feds as Settlement Nears
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CourtListener. SEC v. Collector’s Coffee Inc. Docket