Pair to stop selling ‘Jazz’ t-shirts

The web site that Attorney General Richard Blumenthal accused of illegally selling items memorializing a University of Connecticut football player said Tuesday it will not produce the items and will refund all the money it collected.

The two men behind the effort to sell T­shirts and towels honoring Jasper Howard say their intent was always to raise money for his unborn child.

Braden Byler of Presto, Pa., and Michael Margittai of St. Petersburg, Fla., were adamant Tuesday that their efforts to sell the items via the web site Gamedaytease.com was never a scam, even though they did not have permission from UConn or the Howard family and did not register as a charitable organization with the state of Connecticut.

Byler, who created the web site with friends in 2007 after graduating from the University of Buffalo, said the intent was to give profit from sales to the Jasper Howard Fund.

“We would have been able to raise a significant amount of money, and that’s what we were getting excited about,” Byler said in a telephone interview Tuesday. “We wanted to present the family with a nice, big check. We wanted to contribute any way we could.”

Margittai agreed, saying the intent was “to celebrate Jasper’s life and to help support his child.”

The shirts and towels could still be viewed on the web site today, but purchases were disabled. Margittai, meanwhile, was telling all inquiries to a Facebook page he set up that refunds would take three to five days.

“We are currently processing refunds to everyone who made a purchase, but please do not consider this in any way an admission of any guilt,” he wrote.

In an e-mailed response to questions, Margittai said that as of 10 p.m. last Thursday sales had topped $6,000. He said he expected to sell 10,000 shirts, “which alone would have raised approximately $100,000 for the family,” or an average of $10 per item. Neither he nor Byler would say how many orders they had received as of Tuesday or how much money would be refunded.

Blumenthal said he welcomed word the web site had halted sales and planned to refund money, but said he had not received formal notification. He remained skeptical that the men intended to donate proceeds.

“They can make whatever claim they wish about how they were going to use the money, but they never made a single arrangement or agreement to provide any of the proceeds to the family or the scholarship fund established by the university,” he said.

In contrast, three retailers in Connecticut - Bob’s Stores, the UConn Co-op and Huskywear.com - all registered with the state’s Public Charities Unit and have written contracts with UConn to sell T-shirts with Howard’s uniform No. 6 on them.