The Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC), part of the Connecticut Association of Schools (CAS) and the governing body for most school sports, has filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging an “imposter” organization started by three men in Hartford has engaged in “unfair competition” by stealing both their name and their trademark to start a rival organization.
According to the court complaint and online records, Hartford residents Malik Olsen, Malik Selby, Sr., and Dontraus Johnson started the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference, Inc., in April of 2025 and began using CAS-CIAC’s trademark – called the CIAC MARKS — in online postings in order “to seize, restructure, and legitimize control of the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference.”
Numerous Instagram images of sports or sports players show CIAC Inc. using the CIAC MARKS logo were provided as exhibits. According to court records, CAS-CIAC sent two cease and desist letters to CIAC Inc., but they did not comply. Instead, CIAC Inc. threatened their own legal action in an email, claiming that CAS-CIAC could no longer use the CIAC MARKS nor the acronym “CIAC” because they had formed a new entity called the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference and therefore, CAS-CIAC was engaging in “unauthorized use of a corporate name.”
“To that end, the Defendant has embarked on a campaign to essentially substitute itself for the true CAS-CIAC as the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference by engaging in a scheme of outright deception, misappropriation, unfair competition, and trademark infringement,” CAS-CIAC attorney Patrick Fahey wrote.
The complaint goes on to indicate that the “Imposter CIAC,” made numerous posts on social media and internet sites that the CIAC is “under new leadership,” that “the former CAS-CIAC group no longer holds any legal, ethical, or operational authority over the CIAC name, structure, or governance,” and Olsen wrote that he started a new position as “President & Executive Director” of the CIAC, all while using the CIAC MARKS logo.
“Even following the Court’s issuance of a temporary restraining order on July 21, 2025, the Imposter CIAC has not been dissuaded,” Fahey wrote. “In addition, the Imposter CIAC is actively interfering with CAS-CIAC’s relationship with its members by urging members to cease making any membership payments to CAS-CIAC.”
According to the complaint, the Imposter CIAC reached out to the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) to inform them he was the new president of CIAC, and they were backing out of any pre-existing agreement the CAS-CIAC had with NFHS.
According to a court order issued by the judge, CIAC Inc., also called the Recreation Manager for the City of New Britain and the Director of Physical Education for the City of New Haven, telling them both that CIAC was the new governing body of scholastic athletics and threatening legal action against New Britain if they continued to work with CAS-CIAC.
The Imposter CIAC went so far as to file a lien on CAS-CIAC’s property, “falsely” claiming to be a creditor of CAS-CIAC, which states it has never done any business with the “imposter” CIAC.
According to exhibits, which included social media posts, Malik Selby, Sr., listed as CIAC Inc.’s treasurer and vice president in March of 2025, posted criticism of the CAS-CIAC claiming the organization lacked transparency, paid out excessive salaries, ignores “demographic realities” resulting in “suburban powerhouses that dominate state championships,” and was engaged in “legal intimidation and personal targeting,” for filing their trademark infringement lawsuit.
“Despite collecting millions in school dues and event revenues, there is no independent mechanism for financial review – no third-party audits, no external compliance boards, no published breakdown of how funds reach athletes or schools,” Selby wrote. “In response, CIAC Inc. has launched – not as a rival to CIAC, but as its evolution.”
Selby states that CIAC Inc is “powered by,” MJS Creatives, which lists itself as “a strategic media and development firm that leads national campaigns, branded content, and high impact storytelling across sports and music,” and lists Malik Olsen as its president.
Reached for comment, Olsen claims that the only registered entity is the Connecticut Association of Schools, and that the organization known as the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference was dissolved in 2001, according to the Secretary of State’s business records.
The Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference was started roughly one hundred years ago and merged with the Connecticut Association of Schools in the 1950s, and has held its acronym and trademark the entire time.
However, Olsen says that since CIAC is not registered as a subsidiary on CAS’s 990 forms, nor is CIAC registered as a 501(c)3, he and his partners registered their own entity and claim that CAS-CIAC has no real authority to enforce athletic policy.
“Long story short, the CIAC, legally right now, can’t enforce policy. They can’t force schools to enforce policies due to the fact that they’re not registered in the capacity that they’ve claimed for the past twenty-four years,” Olsen said on a phone call. “The Connecticut Association of Schools has been running things the entire time, and the CIAC was administratively dissolved back in 2001, so they’ve been operating the CIAC as a ghost organization.”
Olsen points to the recent issue in Windsor High School of former NFL football player Chris Baker being banned from high school football games and practices “due to repeated conduct that undermined the authority of the coaching staff, interfered with the team’s philosophy and instruction and raised concerns regarding compliance with CIAC regulations,” according to a letter from the school that Baker posted on social media.
“All these schools that are operating on a budget deficit, it’s because those schools have to pull funding from their education budget in order to fund programs like football, all these sports that require more money but there’s no way to prove where the money is going,” Olsen said. “Which gets me back to the Chris [Baker] situation, that they legally can’t enforce policy when that legal entity they’ve been pushing doesn’t exist outside the registration that we have.”
Olsen has posted several essays criticizing the CAS-CIAC on LinkedIn claiming that high school sports are “governed with a heavy hand.” In one posting, Olsen claims, “The CIAC is now under new leadership, and we are rebuilding it from the inside out.”
The CAS-CIAC is claiming unfair competition through CIAC Inc’s use of their logo and their intention to cause confusion and deception with their members; “cybersquatting,” through registering www.officialciac.com as a domain address, and common law infringement, among several other claims.
They are seeking monetary damages, orders to forfeit domain names and social media accounts that claim to be the CIAC, and an order CIAC Inc., contact “each and every person” to whom they represented themselves as the “official” CIAC.
In August U.S. District Court Judge Sarah F. Russell granted a preliminary injunction against CIAC Inc., enjoining them from using the CAS-CIAC trademark; using the acronym “CIAC” or any similar symbol or logo, making any further misleading claims, and they must remove all posts that use the CIAC name or its trademark.
Although CIAC Inc. has yet to file any responses in court, Olsen says they are coming. He is currently living in Brooklyn with family as he recovers from an illness, but states he will be back in Hartford soon to make his case in state court, which he believes will get the injunction lifted and the federal case frozen so they could do what they originally set out do – form a new CIAC.
“Honestly, trademark infringement is nothing compared to what we’re about to file in state court,” Olsen said. “We weren’t exposing this just to expose it; we’re exposing it with a plan to fix it to make it more beneficial for everybody.
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