The family of West Virginia Governor Jim Justice has reached a settlement with a debt collection agency. Avoiding foreclosure on historic hotels The resort announced Thursday that he will run for U.S. Senate.
The Republican governor’s family was scheduled to appear in court Friday to ask a judge to halt the Greenbrier auction, which had been scheduled for Tuesday.
That hearing was cancelled.
“The issue has been resolved, we are moving forward, and The Greenbrier is as whole as it can be,” Justice said at a news conference. “The Greenbrier will forever be a part of our family.”
The hotel was under threat of auction after JPMorgan Chase sold the governor’s long-standing loan to debt collection firm McCormick 101 (a subsidiary of Beltway Capital), which declared the hotel in default.
The Justices said in a statement that they had reached an agreement with Beltway Capital to “receive specified amounts in full by October 24, 2024.”
The judges did not disclose the amount, but said the family had already secured the funds.
“Under the agreement, Beltway Capital reserves its rights in the event of default by the Justices,” the statement said.
A message left with Beltway Capital was not immediately returned Thursday.
At a news conference Thursday, Justice defended his family’s business practices and repeated his past claims that JPMorgan Chase’s sale of Greenbriar Loan was a politically motivated attempt to damage his Senate campaign.
“We had a working relationship with JPMorgan for 14 years, but right after the primary that I won, no matter what anybody said, I was going to the U.S. Senate without a doubt, it made absolutely no sense, nothing at all, except politically,” he said.
Justice said the family had only paid off the JPMorgan loan in June and was notified in July that the loan had been sold without prior warning. JPMorgan Chase did not respond to an email seeking comment.
Justice said that if the hotel had been sold, “it would have caused catastrophe and destruction beyond imagination to the fine people of the Greenbrier,” referring to the jobs that might have been lost.
The auction, scheduled to take place Tuesday at the courthouse in the small town of Lewisburg, involves 60.5 acres of land that includes a hotel and parking lot.
Lawyers for the Justice family filed a motion this week seeking a preliminary injunction to stop the auction of The Greenbrier.
They argued that the 2014 trust deed approved by the governor was flawed because JPMorgan did not obtain consent from Greenbriar Hotel Co.’s directors and owners, and that auctioning the property violated the company’s duty to “deal fairly and in good faith” with the company.
They also argued that the auction would harm the economy and threaten hundreds of jobs.
About 400 Greenbriar Hotel employees were notified this week by lawyers for health care provider Amalgamated National Health Fund that they would lose their insurance unless the Justices paid $2.4 million in outstanding contributions by Tuesday, the scheduled date of the auction.
Peter Bostic, a union official with the Mid-Atlantic Regional Joint Committee of Laborers, said Justice hasn’t contributed to the employee health fund for four months but will soon need an additional $1.2 million, according to a letter the committee received from Ronald Richman, an attorney with Schulte, Roth & Zabel, which is representing the fund.
The letter also said that some contributions had been deducted from employees’ salaries due to concerns from union leaders, but were never deposited into the fund.
Justice on Thursday dismissed concerns about the claims, telling reporters that “claims have been paid and will continue to be paid regularly.”
“There’s no way that the fine union workers at Greenbriar could go without insurance,” he said. “No way.”
Justice is running against former Wheeling Mayor Glenn Elliott, a Democrat, for the U.S. Senate seat. Justice owns dozens of businesses and had a net worth estimated by Forbes magazine at $513 million in 2021. trial Family business debt and fine payments fell behind Dangerous working conditions in coal mines.
He bought The Greenbrier out of bankruptcy in 2009 and began the first of his second term as governor in 2017.
The hotel has previously hosted U.S. presidents and members of royalty, and even hosted a PGA Tour tournament from 2010 to 2019.
Justice’s family also owns the Greenbrier Sporting Club, a private, luxury community with a members-only “resort within a resort.”
The property is Will be auctioned this year Carter Bank, based in Martinsville, Virginia, has sought to recover more than $300 million in business loans that the governor’s family defaulted on, but the process has been delayed by legal battles.
