Jim Justice, the businessman-turned-politician governor of West Virginia, has been pursued in courtroom for years by banks, governments, enterprise companions and former workers for tens of millions of {dollars} in unmet obligations.
And for a very long time, Mr. Justice and his household’s firms have managed to stave off one menace after one other with wily authorized techniques notably at odds with the aw-shucks persona that has endeared him to so many West Virginians. On Tuesday, he’s closely favored to win the Republican Senate main and cruise to victory within the basic election, particularly after the departure of the Democratic incumbent, Joe Manchin III.
However now, as he wraps up his second time period as governor and campaigns for a seat within the U.S. Senate, issues are wanting dicier. A lot like Donald J. Trump, with whom he’s typically in contrast — with whom he typically compares himself — Mr. Justice has confronted a barrage of expensive judgments and authorized setbacks.
And this time, there could also be too many, some suspect, for Mr. Justice, 73, and his household to fend all of them off.
“It’s a easy matter of math,” mentioned Steven New, a lawyer in Mr. Justice’s childhood hometown, Beckley, W.Va., who, like many attorneys in coal nation, has tangled with Justice firms.
Mr. Justice and his scores of companies would be capable to deal with a few of these potential multimillion-dollar judgments in isolation, Mr. New mentioned. However “while you add all of it up, and put the judgments collectively shut in time, it might seem he doesn’t have sufficient,” he mentioned.
The son of a coal magnate, Mr. Justice took over the household enterprise in 1993 and expanded its pursuits past coal, with acquisitions in agriculture and high-end hospitality. Like many sprawling enterprises, the Justice firms have taken on prodigious money owed. However they’ve additionally taken on a status for not paying them — and that could be catching as much as them.
A financial institution in neighboring Virginia that has served the Justice household for many years has begun the method of amassing on greater than $300 million in defaulted loans. A number of the household enterprise’s prized property, chief amongst them the 246-year-old Greenbrier resort, are within the financial institution’s sights, and collections on the governor’s private financial institution accounts and even his home at the moment are a risk. Efforts have already been underway in Virginia to grab properties belonging to Mr. Justice’s son, James C. Justice III, the president of the household firms.
In West Virginia, the tax authorities have positioned liens on Greenbrier properties for tens of millions in unpaid taxes, solely months after auctioning off tax-delinquent properties owned by the governor elsewhere within the state.
Gathering on such substantial debt has pitted collectors in opposition to each other, at occasions to the Justices’ profit. One financial institution sued Mr. Justice together with quite a few banks final month after discovering that the collateral for considered one of its loans, some land close to the Greenbrier, had additionally been pledged to a bunch of different lenders.
In a separate case, a federal choose pressured the Justice-owned coal enterprise handy over an organization helicopter to 1 creditor owed tens of millions of {dollars}, which in flip agreed to share the proceeds of the helicopter’s sale with one other creditor, additionally owed tens of millions. And nonetheless, the fits, judgments and assortment efforts preserve piling up.
Neither the governor’s workplace nor attorneys for the Justice firms responded to questions. When requested in regards to the rising mound of enterprise troubles, Mr. Justice has repeatedly mentioned that the each day operations of his firms are overseen by his kids, and that he’s targeted on his duties as governor.
“There’s no method on earth that I’m going to take one second of focus off of what my job has been since day one,” he advised reporters in February. “I’ve put up with this nonsense the entire time I’ve been right here and all the things. However completely, there’s no method I’ve taken my eye off the ball.”
Probably the most severe of Mr. Justice’s troubles considerations Carter Financial institution and Belief, a regional financial institution primarily based in southern Virginia. Carter Financial institution had been lending to the Justice household for many years, at one level extending roughly $775 million in loans to the Justice companies, greater than 1 / 4 of the financial institution’s complete internet loans on the time.
Justice firms had been steadily paying that down, however in April, they defaulted on the rest of that debt — $302 million in loans that had been personally assured by the governor and members of his household. The financial institution demanded fast compensation.
For the Justices, this was — as described in a deposition final summer time by Mr. Justice’s son — a “mega disaster.” In November, the governor, his household and greater than a dozen of their companies sued the financial institution in federal courtroom for a billion {dollars}, claiming that Carter Financial institution had engaged in unfair and coercive techniques that made it unimaginable to repay the loans.
The swimsuit in opposition to the financial institution didn’t gradual issues down. In January, a choose in a Virginia state courtroom sided with Carter Financial institution, and the financial institution wasted no time beginning the collections course of.
The Justice firms took the case to the Courtroom of Appeals of Virginia, saying that they may not pay the safety bond, which might vary from $25 million to properly over $300 million and would cease the collections course of. The courtroom mentioned it couldn’t halt the gathering effort.
Within the meantime, the financial institution introduced that it was auctioning off the Justice-owned Greenbrier Sporting Membership, a lot to the shock and consternation of the membership’s members, lots of whom personal multimillion-dollar houses close to the membership’s golf course.
That public sale is being challenged in courtroom, and an April listening to was postponed as discussions proceed “in an effort to succeed in a decision that may deal with all events’ considerations,” a lawyer for Carter Financial institution mentioned in a submitting.
However the prospect of shedding the sporting membership portended a menace to the Justice empire’s crown jewel: the Greenbrier Resort. Mr. Justice’s resolution to purchase it out of chapter in 2009 made him a state hero, and since then, the resort, which is appraised at properly over half a billion {dollars}, has hosted Republican congressional retreats, professional soccer coaching camps and big-money golf tournaments, together with one for LIV Golf, the league created by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund.
Additionally it is amongst Carter Financial institution’s collateral, and never simply Carter’s: A mortgage for as much as $50 million from JPMorgan Chase to Mr. Justice can also be partially secured by the Greenbrier. Authorized issues involving the Justice companies typically reveal a tangle of overlapping liabilities, and the battle with Carter Financial institution isn’t any exception. In February, the Justice empire’s greatest creditor, Credit score Suisse, stepped in and sued Carter Financial institution. Credit score Suisse, which is owed about $850 million, says in its swimsuit that Carter Financial institution’s assortment efforts have made it more durable for Credit score Suisse to gather its personal debt from the Justice companies.
Legal professionals for Justice-owned companies have steadily claimed that firms being sued can’t pay as a result of they merely don’t have any cash. However an array of plaintiffs have argued that it is a feint: that Justice officers quietly empty firm accounts being focused by collectors and transfer the funds to different accounts, irritating efforts to gather on money owed.
A federal Justice of the Peace in Kentucky, the place one firm has for years been attempting to gather on a judgment within the tens of tens of millions, has known as the Justice firms’ strikes to keep away from turning over monetary data “probably the most egregious litigation misconduct” he has ever encountered on the bench. The federal district choose overseeing that case is now weighing whether or not to carry senior Justice firm officers in contempt.
As these threats pile up, Mr. Justice insists that that is all a distraction. On his federal candidate disclosure kind, he listed property valued as much as round $2 billion and liabilities at lower than $110 million; this record, nevertheless, doesn’t embody any Carter Financial institution or Credit score Suisse loans, the place his firms have been the borrower and he was a guarantor.
Routinely, he says that each one can be proper in the long run.
“Our household’s constructed an empire of stuff that employs tons and plenty of individuals,” Mr. Justice mentioned in a information briefing. “On the finish of the day, all of it appears to work out.”
His collectors won’t agree with that.
Thomas Hyperlink, 59, who owns a small excavating enterprise, was employed to carry out some work for Justice-owned companies in 2021. Individuals advised him he would remorse doing enterprise with the Justices, however, he mentioned, he was approached by the governor himself. A number of months later, Mr. Hyperlink was broke.
“‘I advised you so’: that’s all I heard,” he mentioned.
On April 24, after a yr and a half of litigation, the Justice firm settled with Mr. Hyperlink, agreeing to pay him a fraction of the lots of of 1000’s he says he was owed. The corporate defaulted on the primary settlement fee.