photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Terrence Shannon Jr. hugs his mother after he was acquitted of a rape charge on June 13, 2024, in Douglas County District Court.

A former college basketball player who was arrested, charged and then quickly acquitted of rape intends to sue the City of Lawrence for nearly $12 million, according to a document obtained through the Kansas Open Records Act.

Attorneys for Terrence Shannon have filed a notice of claim against the city and an individual in its police department for $11.5 million. Shannon’s mother is making a separate claim against the city for $500,000. The name of the individual being sued was redacted from the record provided to the Journal-World.

Last year Shannon, then a player for the University of Illinois, was accused of rape for allegedly digitally penetrating an 18-year-old woman last September at the Jayhawk Cafe, a claim he vigorously denied and that a Douglas County jury in June rejected in less than two hours.

The Journal-World and multiple media outlets in Illinois reported last week that Shannon intended to sue the City of Lawrence, the Douglas County District Attorney and the Douglas County government over the arrest and charges.

Details of the claim — and the amount being sought — weren’t released last week, however. The Journal-World sought claim documents from the City of Lawrence and Douglas County. The city on Thursday released a redacted copy of a claim form filed against the city. It is currently unknown whether Shannon and his attorneys are seeking additional money from Douglas County and the District Attorney’s Office. The District Attorney’s Office earlier this week said it did not have any documents related to Shannon filing notice against the office.

Shannon — who is now an NBA player — is suing over “infliction of emotional stress, malicious prosecution, and abuse of process,” according to the claim filed with the city. He argued that both his Fourth and 14th Amendment rights were violated when the city executed a search warrant and took DNA swabs from him while he was in Champaign, Ill. in September 2023.

Shannon ended up being drafted with the No. 27 pick in this year’s NBA draft, but his attorneys argue that he was widely projected by NBA experts to be a lottery pick — one of the top 14 picks — prior to his arrest. His attorneys calculate that the difference in pay for Shannon for a being No. 27 pick versus a No. 14 pick is $8.4 million over the life of his current NBA contract. Shannon also contends he lost $2 million in name, image and likeness money due the negative publicity surrounding his arrest, and he also is seeking attorney’s fees of $550,000, among other claims.

Meanwhile, Shannon’s mother, Treanette Redding, is seeking $500,000 from the city for “intentional infliction of emotional distress.”

“Ms. Redding faced incessant ridicule and humiliation as a result of the false charges against her son,” the claim against the city reads.

Shannon’s attorneys blasted the prosecution after the trial that found Shannon not guilty of all charges, saying their client had been put through a terrible ordeal based on the flimsiest of evidence.

Chicago-based attorney Mark Sutter, in particular, said, “Those pursuing this case need to be called out.” He said in closing arguments that he was glad to not live in Kansas because he would be in fear of a prosecutor’s office that would charge a man with rape with so little evidence.

Sutter had also criticized the Lawrence Police Department for what he described as a poorly conducted investigation, as the Journal-World reported, and he suggested that the accuser may have been motivated by money knowing that Shannon was an NBA prospect. As evidence of the latter, he showed the jury text messages between the woman and her friends where they discussed the matter using dollar-sign emojis.

Shannon testified at trial that he had never met the woman who accused him or touched her in any way, as the Journal-World reported.

Shannon had been charged with rape in December 2023 and was initially suspended from Illinois’ basketball team, where he was the star player, but he sued for reinstatement after missing six games so that he could continue to play for the remainder of the season. About two weeks after his acquittal, he was chosen in the first round of the NBA draft by the Minnesota Timberwolves.