Jackie Robinson's 1947 contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers — arguably the most valuable and important paperwork in sports history — likely will soon end up in the possession of the Jackie Robinson Foundation as part of a proposed court settlement.
The contract, which made Robinson the first Black player in Major League Baseball history, has been mired in a legal dispute and in the possession of the U.S. Marshal Service, along with Robinson's 1945 minor-league deal with the Montreal Royals.
The Securities and Exchange Commission submitted a letter to a New York court Sept. 20, proposing a settlement amongst the remaining parties in its case against Mykalai Kontilai, who pleaded guilty to wire fraud in the federal criminal case against him in Las Vegas on Thursday.
The resolution of the criminal case, which now will take place with Kontilai's sentencing Dec. 4, makes it easier for the final details of SEC suit to be resolved. In that case, Kontilai was found guilty of securities fraud in December 2023.
Kontilai bought the two contracts for $2 million in 2013, using them as the sole collateral to raising $6 million from investors for a venture called Collectors Cafe, a proposed online auction platform for collectibles.
As Kontilai's scheme started to unravel, he tried to sell the contracts through Goldin Auctions in 2017, but the Dodgers asserted the team owned the contracts and had transferred rights to the Jackie Robinson Foundation for display at its museum in New York.
In 2023, the foundation sought summary judgment to have the courts grant rights to the paperwork. But a judge refused to do so because, he argued, the Dodgers abandoned the documents for nearly seven decades, seemingly without caring.
Kontilai fled to Russia, but was not granted asylum. He then was arrested in Germany and extradited to Nevada last year.
The settlement moved closer last week when Kontilai guilty to defrauding investors out of more than $6.1 million.
As part of the proposed settlement, which still must be approved by the court, the Robinson Foundation would give up its claim to Robinson's 1945 Royals contract in exchange for ownership of his 1947 contract with the Dodgers.
Robinson's Royals contract will then go to auction, and the proceeds will be used to settle the case. The investors in Collectors Cafe — who smartly required Kontilai to link their investment with the contracts — will get 72.5% of the funds from the auction, while the SEC will receive 24.2%. Goldin Auctions will get the remaining 3.3%.
The Royals contract is likely worth in the $4 million to $6 million range.
In the 1950s, the Dodgers gave the contracts to the Brooklyn Hall of Records, and these historic artifacts eventually found their way to St. Francis College in Brooklyn.
At some point, one of the caretakers at St. Francis, Arthur Konop, took possession of the contracts, according to court documents. In 2012, three years after Konop died, his family sold the contracts to an auction house for $750,000.
Darren Rovell is the founder of cllct.com and one of the country's leading reporters on the collectibles market. He previously worked for ESPN, CNBC and The Action Network.