Former NFL quarterback Michael Vick made good on his promise not to “stiff people who never stiffed me.” He repaid the final $1.5 million to creditors Thursday, according to Darren Rovell of ESPN, paying back $17.4 million of the $17.6 million owed from a July 2008 bankruptcy filing.
“Paying 99 cents on the dollar, which he did, is remarkable. It happens in maybe one out of 100 cases,” Joseph Luzinski, a senior vice president of Development Specialists Inc., a management consultancy firm and liquidating trustee in Vick’s bankruptcy, told Rovell.
Vick filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy rather than Chapter 7, which would have allowed him to liquidate assets and not owe any more. He designated future income to pay off creditors.
He made nearly $50 million from 2010-2014 with the Eagles and the Jets when he had a restrictive budget to pay back creditors. Vick, who finished his career in 2015 with the Steelers, now works for Fox Sports.
Only the Falcons, who were owed $6.5 million from Vick in a salary settlement negotiated in 2009, lost out. The team sold the liability to Fortress Capital, an investment firm co-founded by Milwaukee Bucks co-owner Wesley Edens, believing they would never see the money repaid by Vick.