Federal lawsuit accuses ‘shadow group’ of using Kentucky Colonel name to raise money
A nonprofit organization of Kentucky Colonels is suing a “shadow group” that allegedly is using its trademarked name to make money and confuse the public.
“They’re treading off our historic trademark to solicit funds and we don’t know where those funds are going,” said Sherry Crose, executive director of the Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels, a government-chartered nonprofit association of about 30,000 colonels which has awarded millions in grants and scholarships.
A group called Kentucky Colonels International and its founder David Wright was using the Kentucky Colonels trademarked name to create a registry of colonels if they paid to join, a federal lawsuit filed Thursday said.
As of 2016, at least 85,000 colonels have received the state’s highest honor from a governor. Those who have been named colonels have the option of joining the Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels— a group chartered by Gov. Flem Sampson in 1931.
Wright, a colonel himself who currently lives in Venezuela, said that his group is simply looking to run a non-governmental club of colonels with access to an online membership registry, vanity email addresses and club-sanctioned titles. Wright said Kentucky Colonels International has about 4,000 members.
Wright said there was a fee to join the registry. “It was a nominal fee,” Wright said. “It was like 33 euro.” (Currently about $36.)
Wright said the registry existed for about a week and “more than 30 people” joined. But his group had to halt the registry because it “found a few errors and decided to pull it back.” One of the errors was the fee. It was too low to support the cost of creating an electronic credential that is “recognized on an international scale,” Wright said.
The title of colonel, once awarded, charges the recipient with being a global goodwill ambassador of the commonwealth, Wright said.
Colonel donors and supporters ‘confused’
The lawsuit accuses Kentucky Colonels International of trademark and name infringement along with defamation over statements Wright made online.
“This action is important because people are being confused by the deliberate efforts of this entity and we must defend the goodwill built over many decades by individual Colonels and The Honorable Order,” said Crose, in a press release. “The ‘Kentucky Colonels’ mark is our federally registered trademark and it represents individuals who honor their commission and charitable efforts.”
An online post authored by Wright and posted on the Kentucky Colonels International website earlier this month disputed some of the statements later made in the lawsuit and called the Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels a “good ole boys network.” The post accuses the order of violating various federal and state laws and of “misleading their donors.”
In its lawsuit, the Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels said that Wright approached it and proposed a merger for a price.
Merging the order with the registry would involve giving “generous financial payments” to Wright and Kentucky Colonels International, the lawsuit stated. The official merger offer arrived in a box at the order’s headquarters in Louisville. The Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels informed Wright that it wasn’t interested in merging.
According to Wright, Kentucky Colonels International was re-established in 2006, after an earlier iteration of the group—also created by Wright—was reportedly threatened with a similar legal action in 2001. In his post, Wright said that Kentucky Colonels International Facebook groups were “infiltrated” by members of the Honorable Order.
“In my opinion, after so many years of controlling the ideal of what a Kentucky colonel is and denoting what a Kentucky colonel should do or does; they are acting as if they (are) the king of the castle or elitists, which they should not,” Wright wrote in the post.
There are allegations of other online misdeeds. After being turned down by the order, Wright commented on one of the order’s Facebook posts with a link to his blog post, the lawsuit states. The order also found that the Kentucky Colonel Wikipedia page was “significantly edited” and Kentucky Colonels International was listed as a group associated with appointed colonels.
People looking to publicly thank the order on Facebook for various distributed grants have mistakenly tagged Kentucky Colonels International, the lawsuit states.
“We’re concerned that Kentucky Colonels could donate to this group and we don’t know where the money is going,” Crose said.
This story was originally published February 25, 2020 at 7:42 AM.