WIN AD co-founder heads to prison after contempt appeal fails

Ben Moore, co-founder of Winthrop Intelligence, the college sports database service, is expected to report to the Denver County Jail on July 1 to serve a 30-day sentence for punitive contempt.

Earlier this month, the Colorado Supreme Court rejected Moore’s request. writ of certiorari seeking to overturn a lower court’s decision ordering him to be incarcerated after he repeatedly failed to turn over records from his divorce case with his estranged wife, Amy Elizabeth.

The dissolution of their marriage was just one long thread in a financial tangle involving Winthrop founders Ben Moore and his cousin Drew Moore, a report documents. Sportico story last year. Ben Moore and Winthrop did not respond to requests for comment.

The Moore cousins ​​founded Winthrop Intelligence in 2009. The company’s athletic department financial database service, WIN AD, quickly became a staple for Division I schools and generated millions in profit. The subscription platform, which can cost up to $14,000 a year, lists thousands of employee and vendor contracts obtained through public records requests.

But as Sportico According to reports, the Moore cousins ​​subsequently became involved in a series of convoluted business ventures, complete with lawsuits and bankruptcies, which raised the eyebrows of Colorado District Court Judge Lisa Arnolds, who oversaw Ben’s divorce case.

Moore told Judge Arnolds that he left Winthrop Intelligence in 2019 and no longer had any financial interest in the company. Elizabeth, however, claimed that he had a multi-million dollar stake in the company and that he colluded with Drew Moore to conceal this asset from the marital estate. The court agreed, and in 2021 ordered Ben Moore to pay Elizabeth a settlement of $17.5 million, plus monthly spousal and spousal support of $21,175 for the following decade.

The court determined that Ben Moore’s 50% share of Winthrop was worth $9,475,000, based on the value he placed on it on personal balance sheets he provided to a bank in an effort to obtain a loan.

Throughout the divorce case, Moore claimed that he had already transferred his interest in Winthrop to a Wyoming spendthrift trust whose beneficiaries were the couple’s two minor children. Elizabeth, however, provided documents that called into question when or if Moore actually conveyed the asset. Even if he had done so, she argued, the trust, for which Drew Moore served as trust protector, could be terminated at any time by Drew in order to return the Winthrop property to Ben upon divorce finalized. (Elizabeth declined to comment for this story.)

The court adopted the ruling of a special master appointed in the case, who found that the trust was “illusory and fraudulent” and “created for the specific purpose of depleting or concealing marital assets in anticipation of a divorce procedures “.

With good behavior, Moore’s upcoming prison sentence could be cut in half. Then again, he also faces multiple restorative contempt charges from the divorce, which could land him additional time behind bars.

The decision by Colorado’s highest court to deny the certificate is just the latest in a series of adverse rulings Moore has received in this case.

In January, a district court magistrate denied her motion to modify her alimony and child support, after testifying that her annual income, which had been determined to be $1 million, had decreased by $850,000 .

Besides Ben Moore, Winthrop has recently experienced its own upheaval.

Two of the company’s longtime employees, Kevin Barefoot and Kevin Cohen, have both left in recent years. Barefoot has since landed at Teamworks, the sports technology company, where he now serves as senior vice president of business development. Cohen’s LinkedIn profile shows his tenure at Winthrop ended in January, but his current employment status is unknown. (He did not respond to a written request.)

Last month, Winthrop hired a new chief marketing officer, according to LinkedIn.

In the company’s most recent filings with the North Carolina Secretary of State, Winthrop Intelligence listed Drew Moore’s home in Durham, North Carolina, as his primary mailing address.