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The first contract Jackie Robinson signed with Brooklyn Dodgers President Branch Rickey on Oct. 23, 1945, was an agreement to play for the Montreal Royals, the Dodgers' top farm club. The deal included a $3,500 signing bonus and $600 per month for the 1946 season. Less than two years later, on April 11, 1947, Robinson signed his first major league contract with Rickey and National League President Ford Frick. He was paid $5,000 for the season. What happened next is well-documented and celebrated annually. Five days after signing, Robinson made history as the first Black player to compete in Major League Baseball, breaking the color barrier. The Dodgers' second baseman was named Rookie of the Year and, two years later, National League Most Valuable Player. He batted .313 over 11 seasons, was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1962 and had his No. 42 retired across baseball in 1997. But what became of the contracts? Sports memorabilia can fetch millions today, and experts say Robinson’s original contracts could surpass the value of Shohei Ohtani’s 50/50 home run ball, Freddie Freeman’s World Series Game 1 walk-off grand slam ball or any high-end Babe Ruth artifacts auctioned for seven figures. After decades of uncertainty, Robinson’s contracts from 1945 and 1947 are safely under lock and key. They have been held by the U.S. Marshals Service since 2019 as part of an investment fraud investigation and prosecution. Mykalai Kontilai, a broadcast executive who in 2013 launched a sports memorabilia business called Collector’s Coffee by acquiring and showcasing the Robinson contracts, pleaded guilty last month to one count of mail fraud. He was sentenced last week to 51 months in prison and ordered to pay $6.1 million in restitution to investors he swindled. Those investors, referred to as “the Holders” in court documents, provided Kontilai with loans using the Robinson contracts as collateral. Kontilai raised more than $23 million before defaulting on the loans. Kontilai, 55, obstructed the investigation by forging documents sent to the Securities and Exchange Commission and lying under oath to the SEC. While under investigation but prior to being charged, he fled to Russia, unsuccessfully seeking asylum as a whistleblower of American corruption. He was arrested on an Interpol Red Notice in Germany in 2023 and extradited to the U.S. in May. Kontilai was found guilty of misappropriating funds, reportedly buying a Cadillac, paying for private school tuition and covering rent on luxury homes across the country, all while misleading investigators and failing to pay taxes on the scheme's proceeds. “Collectors Coffee and Kontilai, its CEO, repeatedly lied to investors to raise money for the company - money which Kontilai routinely stole to fund his lavish lifestyle,” Gurbir S. Grewal, director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, said in a statement last year. “Investors should be able to trust those to whom they give their hard-earned money and not worry that those people will lie, cheat and steal.” The Robinson contracts remain in limbo. A resolution may be near, with the philanthropic Jackie Robinson Foundation and the Holders likely sharing the proceeds. “I hope they could do that,” said David Kohler, president of high-end sports memorabilia house SCP Auctions in Orange County. “The proceeds would go to pay back people who were scammed. That seems like the right thing to do.” Kohler estimated what the contracts might fetch at auction and identified a potential buyer. “I’d say they’d probably go for $5 million and up at auction,” he said. “They reach beyond the game of baseball. They are important 20th-century American artifacts central to the civil rights movement. “I sometimes wonder, when it comes to historical items, why don’t the teams buy them? They’d be worth more to their team than to collectors.” Indeed, the Dodgers attempted to claim the contracts, asserting in a January 2019 letter to Collector’s Coffee that “(t)he property is owned by the Dodgers and is not property of (Collector’s Coffee, Inc.).” Later that year, however, the Dodgers relinquished their ownership claim to the Jackie Robinson Foundation. According to court filings, a potential settlement would grant the Jackie Robinson Foundation the 1947 Dodgers contract, while the Holders would receive the 1945 Montreal Royals contract. The Holders would also get an undisclosed portion of the value of the 1947 contract. The SEC would receive a small share. Kohler noted the Dodgers contract is more valuable than the Royals contract. When the distribution is approved, it could conclude the extraordinary journey of the contracts from Rickey’s desk in the 1940s to potential auctions the Holders hope will cover their losses. Before sports memorabilia became a million-dollar business, Rickey and Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley provided the contracts to the James A. Kelly Institute for Local Historical Studies in Brooklyn for a 1952 exhibition. The contracts remained in the institute’s basement for decades alongside nearly 4 million other documents chronicling Brooklyn’s history. The New York Daily News in 1974 reported the institute's move to St. Francis College in Brooklyn Heights, noting the historical documents included the “bill of sale for Coney Island in 1654” and Robinson’s original contracts. A 1979 Daily News story also mentioned the contracts, yet the Dodgers made no effort to claim them. The institute’s director, St. Francis professor Arthur J. Konop, left a letter with a key to a safe deposit box before his death in 2009, stating, “My kids will know what to do with this.” Three years later, Konop’s wife and son sold the contracts to Gotta Have It Collectibles for $750,000. Odette Konop signed a letter warranting title, stating, “My husband possessed these contracts in a safe deposit box at our home for over 45 years. ... He cared for them and protected them over half his life until his passing.” Gotta Have It sold the contracts a year later for $2 million to Kontilai, who used them as collateral for $6 million in loans. Kontilai used the contracts to bolster his memorabilia business, hosting events in Philadelphia’s Constitution Center and New York’s Times Square. He enlisted expert Seth Kaller, who valued the contracts at $36 million, before spending investors' money. When the SEC began investigating in 2017, Kontilai forged documents, lied under oath and obstructed the case. After three years, he was indicted in Nevada on 18 counts, including securities fraud, wire fraud, money laundering and failure to file tax returns. He faced additional charges in Colorado, but those were dropped when he pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud. The Jackie Robinson Foundation, established in 1973 by Robinson’s widow Rachel Robinson, may soon gain partial ownership of the contracts. The nonprofit administers scholarship and leadership programs for college students and was central to creating the Jackie Robinson Museum, which opened in 2022 in New York City. “Even if you come in with the idea to see the baseball story and learn more about that, you have to walk through that room that talks about his commitment to economic opportunity and civil rights and social justice,” Della Britton, president and CEO of the Jackie Robinson Foundation, told The Times in 2022. In one museum room, Robinson’s life roles are displayed in large capital letters: SOLDIER, CAMPAIGNER, PUBLIC SERVANT, ACTIVIST, FUNDRAISER, ORGANIZER, PROTESTER, ENTREPRENEUR, CITIZEN and more. Also displayed are framed copies of the contracts from 1945 and 1947. The originals, however, remain under federal custody until a court approves their new ownership and an auction determines their monetary value.Trump asks Supreme Court to delay TikTok ban so he can weigh in after he takes office