Forte Interactice Achieve Agency Race Partners Forte Interactive, Inc. provides Web solutions for nonprofit organizations and race directors in the United States. West Palm Beach FL Florida

  Forte Interactive hit with another suit for unpaid race fees April 27, 2018 By 

• Jeff Ostrowski, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

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Another race organizer says it’s owed a six-figure sum by Forte Interactive, the West Palm Beach Company forced into bankruptcy by its creditors.

Cumulus Media, the Atlanta-based radio station owner, filed a suit in Palm Beach County this week saying it’s owed $247,946 in fees that Forte Interactive collected for the Bridge to Bridge Run in San Francisco. Cumulus is just the latest company to claim it was stiffed by Forte Interactive.

Related: Cubs, Giants, Brewers say Forte Interactive owes them for race entry fees

Saying they’re owed nearly $1.4 million by Forte Interactive of West Palm Beach, six race organizers in Maryland and Wisconsin on Tuesday filed a petition to push the company into involuntary bankruptcy.

That’s in addition to three Major League Baseball teams and a California Chamber of Commerce that have sued the West Palm internet marketing firm. In all, 11 organizers of 5Ks, bike rides and triathlons across the country say nearly $2.8 million in entry fees collected by Forte Interactive have disappeared.

Forte Interactive’s RacePartner.com site collected entry fees and never turned them over, according to a blue-chip list of litigants that includes the NFL’s Green Bay Packers and Major League Baseball’s Chicago Cubs, San Francisco Giants and Milwaukee Brewers.

The largest creditor in the bankruptcy filing is Corrigan Sports Enterprises of Elkridge, Maryland. The company says in the filing that it’s owed $943,000 by Forte Interactive.

Bellin Memorial Hospital and Bellin Health Foundation of Green Bay, Wisconsin, say they’re owed a combined $250,000, while the Green Bay Packers are seeking the return of $90,220 in missing race fees. Door County Triathlon and Fall 50, both of DePere, Wisconsin, are seeking a combined $100,000.

The creditors seek to force Forte Interactive into a bankruptcy litigation, which would place the settlement of the company’s debts under the supervision of a federal bankruptcy judge and trustee.

For nearly two decades, Forte Interactive was a growing operation, with three dozen employees and an enviable stable of high-profile clients. Once headed by entrepreneur Clay Williams, the company was taken over in late October by Kirk St. Johns, a turnaround specialist who lives in West Palm Beach.

In separate civil suits filed in 2017 and 2018, the Cubs, Giants and Brewers said they’re owed more than $900,000 for entry fees for races that took place in 2017. And the Giants have already won a judgment for $621,836.

The Giants said Forte Interactive never turned over fees paid by thousands of runners who competed in the Giant Race series of events in San Francisco, Sacramento, San Jose and Scottsdale, Arizona, in 2017.

Chicago Cubs Charities, a nonprofit affiliated with the 2016 World Series champions, sued Forte Interactive in Palm Beach County Circuit Court. The organization says Forte Interactive owes it $141,429 in registration fees paid by runners who participated in the Cubs’ annual Run to Wrigley Field 5K race in April 2017.

Forte Interactive bounced a check for that amount in March 2017, Chicago Cubs Charities said in its suit.

The Milwaukee Brewers and the Brewers Community Foundation sued in February in Wisconsin. That suit says Forte owes $142,833 in fees from the Famous Racing Sausages 5K Run/Walk and the Hitting 4 The Cycle bike race.