Former University of Colorado and NFL linebacker Chad Brown, right, takes a selfie during Super Bowl 50 week in San Francisco on Feb. 3, 2016. (Vince Chandler/The Denver Post)
Chad Brown, a member of the University of Colorado’s Hall of Fame who spent 15 seasons in the NFL, has been ordered to pay $200,000 to a former business partner to settle one lawsuit and reportedly lost his job at a Denver radio station due to a second lawsuit.
Brown, 54, is the owner of All Pro Shipping in Lone Tree, a reptile shipping company that he and Robyn Markland, a Castle Rock man, started in 2009. The niche business has reportedly thrived in the 15 years since but Brown’s conflicts with two executives have led to lawsuits.
Markland alleged in a 2022 complaint that he had been ousted from the company and denied hundreds of thousands of dollars in distributions that he was owed as a 49-percent owner. He also accused Brown of spending company funds on a Rolex, a koi pond at his home and an albino reptile, and claimed that Brown carried on romantic affairs at the office.
Brown admitted to one extramarital affair but otherwise denied wrongdoing and accused Markland of defaming him. A trial scheduled for this June was later canceled.
On July 12, Brown’s birthday, the men settled their dispute. Brown agreed to pay $200,000 to Markland by July 15, both agreed to drop their claims and counterclaims, and both agreed to stop disparaging each other. Specifically, Brown and Markland are barred from mentioning “sex, sexuality, cameras, extramarital affairs, pornography” or a particular adult toy.
The settlement is confidential and is to be treated “with absolute secrecy,” according to a copy filed in Douglas County District Court and obtained by BusinessDen in a records request.
Markland was not paid by July 15, so his lawyers asked Judge Gary Kramer to enforce the settlement. Two days later, Kramer ordered Brown to pay up. When Brown still had not wired the $200,000 by Monday, Kramer ordered Brown to explain why he should not be held in contempt of court. A hearing on that is set for Aug. 30.
Lawyers in a second lawsuit against Brown claim to know why Markland hasn’t been paid: because Brown and All Pro are insolvent. Brown’s lawyer hotly disputes that.
“That’s just a lie,” Peter Schaffer, who is also Brown’s agent, said at a hearing July 18.
“We sent them six years of financials for All Pro Shipping. It shows $2.5-$3 million per year in income. This is defamatory,” Schaffer said. He called Brown “anything but broke. He owns multiple real estate holdings in multiple states, multiple businesses, all kinds of stuff.”
The sports agent and attorney Peter Schaffer drives a ball at Vista Ridge Golf Club in Erie in this 2016 file photo. (The Denver Post)
The hearing was in the case of Janelle Hersch, a former controller at All Pro who Brown admits having an affair with but adamantly denies harassing or wrongly firing. Schaffer revealed at last week’s hearing that Hersch’s allegations have recently cost his client work.
“Mr. Brown lost his job in sports radio because of this lawsuit,” his attorney and agent said. In a phone call, Schaffer qualified that the suit was “one of the reasons” for his release.
Brown announced in September that he had been let go from 104.3 The Fan, where he co-hosted a daily sports talk show called “The Player’s Club.” Brown did not say why that had happened. Spokespeople for Bonneville International, which owns 104.3 and several other radio stations in Denver, did not answer BusinessDen’s questions about Brown.
Meanwhile, the Hersch case is in a strange place. Hersch’s attorneys are trying to drop the case ahead of a December trial because, they claim, Brown and All Pro are too broke to collect money from. But Schaffer is trying to keep the case alive, so that he can depose Hersch, collect other evidence through discovery, and prove that Brown did nothing wrong.
“We’d like to exonerate my client,” he told Denver District Court Judge Sarah Wallace.
Wallace agreed to let a deposition of Hersch occur next month and held off on canceling the late-year jury trial as she weighs whether to dismiss the case without prejudice, meaning it could be refiled at a later date, or with prejudice, which would bar Hersch from refiling it.
“I’m glad they realize it’s not a viable case,” Schaffer said by phone Monday, “but there needs to be some conditions, including dismissal with prejudice and mutual non-disparagement agreements, because we don’t want to have to deal with all of this again.
“We’re not out to get the plaintiff and we never were but at some point this has got to stop. That’s what I said to the judge: it’s got to stop. They can’t keep making stuff up.”
Former University of Colorado and NFL linebacker Chad Brown, right, takes a selfie during Super Bowl 50 week in San Francisco on Feb. 3, 2016. (Vince Chandler/The Denver Post)
Chad Brown, a member of the University of Colorado’s Hall of Fame who spent 15 seasons in the NFL, has been ordered to pay $200,000 to a former business partner to settle one lawsuit and reportedly lost his job at a Denver radio station due to a second lawsuit.
Brown, 54, is the owner of All Pro Shipping in Lone Tree, a reptile shipping company that he and Robyn Markland, a Castle Rock man, started in 2009. The niche business has reportedly thrived in the 15 years since but Brown’s conflicts with two executives have led to lawsuits.
Markland alleged in a 2022 complaint that he had been ousted from the company and denied hundreds of thousands of dollars in distributions that he was owed as a 49-percent owner. He also accused Brown of spending company funds on a Rolex, a koi pond at his home and an albino reptile, and claimed that Brown carried on romantic affairs at the office.
Brown admitted to one extramarital affair but otherwise denied wrongdoing and accused Markland of defaming him. A trial scheduled for this June was later canceled.
On July 12, Brown’s birthday, the men settled their dispute. Brown agreed to pay $200,000 to Markland by July 15, both agreed to drop their claims and counterclaims, and both agreed to stop disparaging each other. Specifically, Brown and Markland are barred from mentioning “sex, sexuality, cameras, extramarital affairs, pornography” or a particular adult toy.
The settlement is confidential and is to be treated “with absolute secrecy,” according to a copy filed in Douglas County District Court and obtained by BusinessDen in a records request.
Markland was not paid by July 15, so his lawyers asked Judge Gary Kramer to enforce the settlement. Two days later, Kramer ordered Brown to pay up. When Brown still had not wired the $200,000 by Monday, Kramer ordered Brown to explain why he should not be held in contempt of court. A hearing on that is set for Aug. 30.
Lawyers in a second lawsuit against Brown claim to know why Markland hasn’t been paid: because Brown and All Pro are insolvent. Brown’s lawyer hotly disputes that.
“That’s just a lie,” Peter Schaffer, who is also Brown’s agent, said at a hearing July 18.
“We sent them six years of financials for All Pro Shipping. It shows $2.5-$3 million per year in income. This is defamatory,” Schaffer said. He called Brown “anything but broke. He owns multiple real estate holdings in multiple states, multiple businesses, all kinds of stuff.”
The sports agent and attorney Peter Schaffer drives a ball at Vista Ridge Golf Club in Erie in this 2016 file photo. (The Denver Post)
The hearing was in the case of Janelle Hersch, a former controller at All Pro who Brown admits having an affair with but adamantly denies harassing or wrongly firing. Schaffer revealed at last week’s hearing that Hersch’s allegations have recently cost his client work.
“Mr. Brown lost his job in sports radio because of this lawsuit,” his attorney and agent said. In a phone call, Schaffer qualified that the suit was “one of the reasons” for his release.
Brown announced in September that he had been let go from 104.3 The Fan, where he co-hosted a daily sports talk show called “The Player’s Club.” Brown did not say why that had happened. Spokespeople for Bonneville International, which owns 104.3 and several other radio stations in Denver, did not answer BusinessDen’s questions about Brown.
Meanwhile, the Hersch case is in a strange place. Hersch’s attorneys are trying to drop the case ahead of a December trial because, they claim, Brown and All Pro are too broke to collect money from. But Schaffer is trying to keep the case alive, so that he can depose Hersch, collect other evidence through discovery, and prove that Brown did nothing wrong.
“We’d like to exonerate my client,” he told Denver District Court Judge Sarah Wallace.
Wallace agreed to let a deposition of Hersch occur next month and held off on canceling the late-year jury trial as she weighs whether to dismiss the case without prejudice, meaning it could be refiled at a later date, or with prejudice, which would bar Hersch from refiling it.
“I’m glad they realize it’s not a viable case,” Schaffer said by phone Monday, “but there needs to be some conditions, including dismissal with prejudice and mutual non-disparagement agreements, because we don’t want to have to deal with all of this again.
“We’re not out to get the plaintiff and we never were but at some point this has got to stop. That’s what I said to the judge: it’s got to stop. They can’t keep making stuff up.”
