Daily Record

After agreeing in October to settle its approximately $700,000 debt with the state by the end of the year, Geppi’s Entertainment Museum has still not paid more than half that amount, according to documents obtained Monday by The Daily Record.

Founded in 2006 by Stephen A. Geppi, the museum had a 19-month period of not making a single payment — accruing an outstanding balance of $622,500 in unpaid rent and $77,000 in late fees and unpaid electricity bills to the Maryland Stadium Authority by October 2008.

Subsequent payments to the authority in October, November and January toward the debt and the museum’s monthly rent payment of $30,659 totaled $511,318 as of the museum’s last payment on Jan. 16. Geppi’s outstanding balance is $364,884.98.

Geppi, CEO of Diamond Comic Distributors Inc. in Timonium and publisher of Baltimore magazine, did not return multiple requests for comment on this story Monday.

In October, when The Daily Record first reported the discrepancy, the authority’s chief financial officer, David A. Raith, said Geppi’s balance was to be paid off in installments due at the end of November and December.

The agency’s executive director, Michael J. Frenz, said Monday he did not know why the museum was unable to meet its end of the agreement and deferred those questions to Geppi. But Frenz did say he was encouraged by the fact the museum had paid off more than half its debt to the state in the last three months, including its last payment of $350,000.

“We continue to speak with Mr. Geppi, and, given that he paid a significantly large sum 10 days ago, we anticipate we are going to collect the rest of the amount owed very soon,” Frenz said. “One of the reasons we didn’t do anything [when the deadline expired] was because of that.”

However the lease between the museum and the stadium authority does allow for the agency to terminate the 10-year agreement and force the pop culture museum to vacate its location in the upper floors of Camden Station if the tenant is in violation of the lease.