Gov. Jim Justice and Babydog visit the State Fair of West Virginia near the Governor’s home in Lewisburg on Saturday. (Photo Provided)
CHARLESTON – Gov. Jim Justice continued to claim, but provided no evidence, Tuesday that an effort to foreclose and auction the Justice-owned Greenbrier Resort on the courthouse steps in two weeks was political.
“It has to be driven by something,” Justice said during his weekly administration briefing from the Capitol. “I truly do believe that it is a political play. Everyone I talk to says the same thing.”
But Delegate Mike Pushkin, chairman of the West Virginia Democratic Party, said in a statement Monday Justice was trying to shift the blame for his business issues from himself to others.
“Gov. Justice’s attempt to paint himself as the victim of a politically motivated attack is not only absurd, but also a clear attempt to distract from the real issues at hand,” Pushkin, D-Kanawha, said. “His businesses have racked up millions in unpaid fines and debts over the past decade, and now that creditors and federal agencies are holding him accountable, he’s trying to shift the blame onto others.”
Maryland-based Beltway Capital Management and McCormick 101 LLC, companies involved with purchasing distressed loans from banks that are secured with collateral, will auction the historic Greenbrier Resort on Aug. 27 after purchasing the loan from JPMorgan Chase Bank.
JPMorgan transferred the Justice Greenbrier loan to Beltway Capital/McCormick 101 on July 2, declaring the loan in default after Justice was unable to pay the full loan amount by the June 28 maturity date. Beltway Capital announced in a legal ad in the Lewisburg-based West Virginia Daily News at the beginning of August about the upcoming auction on the steps of the Greenbrier County Courthouse in Lewisburg.
The original promissory note was made between Justice and JPMorgan in 2014 for $142 million. According to representatives of Justice’s companies, the JP Morgan loan was paid down to $9.4 million with the most recent payment in June.
“That’s where we stand. We had an agreement with JPMorgan and we had $9.4 million that we were paying on and paying on and paying on. And everyone was just as happy as they could be,” Justice said. “That was the agreement we had with JPMorgan.”
According to civil court filings, JPMorgan and Justice had entered into six amended forbearance agreements over the years, with the most recent being agreed to on Dec. 29, 2023. According to an April 2 letter to Gov. Justice from JPMorgan, multiple defaults by Justice caused the remaining loan amount to become due immediately.
McCormick 101 filed suit on July 18 in the Supreme Court of New York against Gov. Justice, James C. Justice Companies Inc., Justice Holdings LLC, GSR LLC, Wintergreen Partners Inc. and the Greenbrier Hotel Corporation. McCormick 101 is seeking $40.3 million from Justice and his companies and. any interest and late charges that accrue since July 15 along with attorney fees.
Justice said he wondered why JPMorgan would not have consulted Virginia-based Carter Bank and Trust before selling the Greenbrier loan. According to company representatives, Justice and JPMorgan came to a new mutual agreement in 2021 after Justice pledged a second lien position for the resort behind Carter Bank to obtain better terms on the JPMorgan loan.
“We had a 15-year relationship,” Justice said of JPMorgan. “What in the world happened? We weren’t notified. Carter Bank was never asked about their position. In all honesty, why wouldn’t you have asked Carter Bank? If you wanted to sell the $9.4 million obligation, why wouldn’t you have asked Carter Bank? I’ll bet my life on this: it was sold for significantly less than $9.4 million. How does that make any sense in the world?
Justice and Carter Bank announced a global settlement last month. According to a press release from the Justice family, the settlement offered a pathway to paying off the more than $301 million owed to the bank by the Justices, since reduced to $291.1 million.
Attorneys for Carter Bank filed 21 confessed judgments since April 2023 against Justice, Cathy Justice, Jay Justice and multiple Justice-owned companies, seeking more than $301 million plus interest and attorney fees. The two companies feuded over these loan agreements in 2021 before coming to a deal at that time.
Justice reported ownership in 108 companies, according to his 2024 financial disclosure report with the West Virginia Ethics Commission, with eight of those companies placed in blind trusts. Daughter Jill Justice manages Justice’s hospitality businesses, such as the Greenbrier. But the bulk of Justice’s businesses focused on coal, agriculture and real estate are managed by his son, Jay Justice.
Justice, now wrapping up the last five months of his second and final term as governor of West Virginia, is the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in November, running for the seat of the retiring Sen. Joe Manchin, I-W.Va. Justice faces former Democratic Wheeling mayor Glenn Elliott in the general election.
“I’m running for the U.S. Senate, and in all honesty…it carries terrific burdens,” Justice said. “I truly believe if I wasn’t running for the U.S. Senate, you never would have heard about this in 10 million years and we would have just continued to do exactly what we’re doing with JPMorgan and everyone would have been happy in the neighborhood.”
According to modeling by both RealClearPolitics and Decision Desk HQ, West Virginia’s open Senate seat is considered a strong pickup for Republicans seeking to flip control of the Senate back to GOP control since the Democratic Party gained control following special elections in 2021. Several other states could see party flips, including Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., and Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio.
“I could be the very vote to flip the whole U.S. Senate,” Justice said.
Elliott is nearing the end of a 55-county tour of West Virginia, with scheduled stops in Upshur, Jackson, Mason, Putnam, and Kanawha counties this week. In a post on social media Tuesday, Elliott encouraged Republican and independent voters to compare his record with Justice’s.
“If you value personal responsibility and accountability, a man who has blamed his own adult children, his bankers, and now Democrats, for his self-inflicted financial woes does not deserve your vote,” Elliott said. “Give me a chance to earn it instead.”
Multiple national media outlets reported in July that Trump was considering Jamie Dimon, the CEO and chairman of JPMorgan Chase, as a nominee for secretary of the Treasury Department should he win election in November over Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president following President Joe Biden suspending his re-election campaign in July.
Pushkin called claims that JPMorgan dumped the Greenbrier loan in order to harm the governor’s Senate campaign “laughable.”
“This is not about politics; it’s about years of unpaid bills, safety violations, and a failure to meet obligations,” Pushkin said. “West Virginians deserve better than a governor who refuses to take responsibility for his actions and instead tries to deflect blame with baseless conspiracy theories. The Justice family businesses have shown a consistent pattern of neglect, and it’s time for accountability, not excuses.”
The news about the Greenbrier is among several issues affecting Justice’s business empire, including the Greenbrier. According to tax records held by the Greenbrier County Clerk’s Office, Greenbrier Hotel Corp. owed more than $2.7 million in tax liens and penalties for unremitted consumer sales and use taxes and withholding taxes as of the end of July, as well as owed interest and penalties.
In other Justice business news, Kentucky-based New London Tobacco Market and Fivemile Energy LLC are seeking garnishment in federal court from Kentucky state agencies and another company in the state to recoup more than $34.8 million owed to the companies by Justice’s companies.
In that same case, Jay Justice and Stephen Ball, the general counsel for several of the Justice-owned businesses, were held in civil contempt of court with daily fines of $250 per day for not turning over required discovery documents. Fivemile Energy and New London Tobacco Market filed suit against Justice in 2012 and was awarded $18 million over a dispute between the companies regarding mineral rights, though accrued interest and other costs have caused the amount due to balloon.
Last week, U.S Attorney Christopher Kavanaugh filed a motion in a Virginia federal court to hold Justice-owned Southern Coal Corp. and 22 other Justice-owned companies in contempt over non-payment of Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) civil penalties. The companies owe $579,041 after agreeing to a settlement in 2020 to pay down more than $5.1 million in MSHA penalties.
It’s a crying shame when someone steps up and they’re going to be a political candidate that they become a target like nobody’s business,” Justice said. “I believe with all my soul that things will get worked out. If you believe this is not a political play, I think you’re crazy. There is no other reason.”
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