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The finances of Gov. Jim Justice and his many businesses have become the focus of the 2024 race for U.S. Senate. (Photo courtesy of the WV Governor’s Office)
CHARLESTON — The Republican primary for U.S. Senate is still more than 10 months away, but the financial health of Gov. Jim Justice, once West Virginia’s richest man and lone billionaire, is an issue in the race.
Justice has become increasingly defensive and protective of his business empire’s financial information, seeking to limit what data can be provided in a federal legal proceeding, pushing off when his campaign has to file financial disclosure reports and urging media to not focus on his family’s businesses.
“If you want to beat on these stories and everything about the family, what I would hope you would do is calm down just a little bit,” Justice said Tuesday at the tail end of his weekly administration briefing with reporters at the Capitol. “All these worries and exaggerations and concerns are just that. At the end of the day, all is good in my neighborhood, and everything is just going to remain that way.”
But with pending court cases seeking millions of dollars, properties being auctioned on courthouse steps and judicial orders seeking payment for past-due agreements, Justice’s political opponents are questioning his ability to be a viable candidate to take on Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., next year.
CHECK PLEASE
On West Virginia’s 160th birthday Tuesday, Chief Judge Michael F. Urbanski of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia issued an order giving Justice’s companies 10 days to make more than $409,000 in overdue payments as part of a 2020 agreement, according to court filings.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office and the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration brought a lawsuit against 23 Justice-owned companies in 2019 seeking millions in unpaid mine safety penalties. According to the 2020 settlement, the companies made a one-time payment of $212,909.44 and agreed to pay $102,442 per month by the first of every month until $5.1 million is paid in full.
Last year, the companies were dinged for falling behind with the U.S. Attorney’s Office filing a motion to compel payment after a payment was missed in March 2022. Justice’s companies avoided a judicial order and paid the past-due amount. More than $2.4 million has been paid to the federal government; however, the Justice companies are now more than four months past due, resulting in Tuesday’s court order.
A new civil case filed in the Western District of Virginia by the Department of Justice last month is seeking $7.6 million in civil penalties and unpaid abandoned mine lands fees by 13 Justice-owned companies and Justice’s son Jay on behalf of the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement.
IN THE RED
Justice, who entered the Forbes 400 billionaires list in 2009, was once worth as much as $1.7 billion. But after 2021, Forbes lowered Justice’s worth to approximately $450 million following issues with the now-defunct financial firm Greensill Capital and other debts.
The Justice family has since been working on a deal with Credit Suisse, the Swiss bank that now holds the debt previously owed to Greensill, to settle more than $850 million in debt. Of that number, Gov. Justice and first lady Cathy Justice personally guaranteed more than $700 million in loans for his companies, more than half of Justice’s estimated worth.
The Wall Street Journal reported in March that Justice’s businesses had retained the services of a company to provide advice for “strategic options” for Bluestone Resources Inc., the Justice-owned company that oversees all of their coal mining processing operations, including selling off parts of the company to settle the debt.
The financial conditions of Justice and his companies have remained largely shrouded from public view. Justice, who announced for the Senate at the end of April, had 30 days from the time of his filing or until May 15 to file a financial disclosure with the Senate. Instead, the Justice campaign filed on May 25 for a 90-day extension. The extension was granted, pushing Justice’s financial disclosure report deadline to Aug. 24.
Attorneys for Justice tried to get a federal judge last week to grant a motion to defer discovery in a case brought by Pennsylvania-based Xcoal Energy and Resources in order to shield Justice’s financial information, citing concerns over hacking and the use of such information by Justice’s political opponents in the Senate race.
“As a candidate in an electoral race that could determine control of the United States Senate during an era of bitterly divided partisan politics, Gov. Justice has both: (a) a realistic concern that any personal financial information he provides to Xcoal in discovery may be leaked, hacked or otherwise made public; and (b) a compelling basis to seek heightened protections for his personal financial information,” wrote Justice attorney John Sensing in a June 16 letter to Judge Leonard P. Stark of the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware.
Xcoal is seeking more than $2 million remaining from a total $10 million judgment and fees owed by Justice’s companies after the companies breached a 2017 agreement to provide Xcoal with coal shipments for export. On Tuesday, Stark rejected Justice’s reasoning for hiding his financials in an oral order denying the motion from Justice’s companies and granting a motion by Xcoal to compel the companies to provide relevant documents.
“…Gov. Justice’s objections lack merit,” Stark said. “He identifies no authority for his contention that he should not have to provide discovery (or, at least, should not have to provide discovery until after his co-defendants do so) because he is a declared candidate for political office.”
TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS
According to his most recent financial disclosure report with the West Virginia Ethics Commission, Justice lists 111 companies he owns, seven of which are in blind trusts. Justice’s son Jay manages the coal and agricultural businesses while daughter Jill manages the hospitality businesses and the historic Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs.
Justice frequently has said over the years that he is no longer involved in his family businesses, focused since taking office in 2017 on the job as governor.
“Sure, it hurts some that I’m not available or not there to help my son and daughter and everything,” Justice said Tuesday. “Let Jay and Jill do their thing. They work night and day. They’re great, great young Americans.”
But even while not running the day-to-day operations of his businesses, Justice remains at the top of his companies’ leadership structure.
According to an organizational chart submitted last year in an ongoing legal battle between New London Tobacco Market and Justice-owned Kentucky Fuel Corp., the Justice family sits at the top of the pyramid, with the 111 companies under six different categories: the Justice Family Group (hospitality); Bluestone Resources (coal and coke operations); non-Bluestone coal operations; timber, gas, and coal holdings; real estate and agricultural holdings; and miscellaneous land holdings.
For companies listed under the Bluestone Resources banner, Gov. Justice controls 60% while Jay Justice controls 40%. In another organizational chart that includes Justice Low Seam Mining and Chestnut Land Holdings, Gov. Justice controls 51%, while Jay controls 35% and Jill Justice controls 14%.
According to a November 2022 deposition in the case brought by New London Tobacco Market, Stephen Ball, general counsel for Justice’s companies, testified that the health of Justice’s business empire is not good.
“Would it be accurate to say in terms of just the family businesses generally, that the businesses are thriving?” an attorney for New London Tobacco Market asked Ball.
“No. Certainly not the ones I’m involved in,” Ball answered. “The reality is, Bluestone is really suffering from the Greensill bankruptcy. It’s just really strapped for cash.”
Ball, in his testimony, said Justice is not involved in the day-to-day operations of his family’s businesses except when it comes to the $700 million in personal loan guarantees to Greensill/Credit Suisse, and the more than $300 million in personal loan guarantees to Virginia-based Carter Bank and Trust.
Attorneys for Carter Bank and Trust have filed 21 confessed judgments since April against Gov. Justice, Cathy Justice, Jay Justice and multiple Justice-owned companies, seeking more than $301 million plus interest and attorney fees.
In March, Citizens Bank of West Virginia filed an application for suggestee execution with the Randolph County Circuit Court seeking a garnishment of Justice’s $150,000 annual salary and wages as governor after the bank was awarded a judgment against Bluestone Resources Inc.
Justice personally guaranteed more than $3 million in loans from the bank to purchase heavy machinery, with some equipment already returned to the bank. The circuit court awarded Citizens Bank $861,085, which includes unpaid interest and costs.
And according to West Virginia MetroNews, several properties owned by Justice and his companies were up on the auction block in Raleigh, Wyoming and McDowell counties due to thousands of dollars of unpaid property taxes.
One of Justice’s three Republican opponents in the 2024 Republican primary for U.S. Senate, 2nd District Rep. Alex Mooney, has hit Justice frequently for his business problems over the last several months.
“From his properties being auctioned off to courts ordering millions in debt payments, it has been a terrible week for Jim Justice,” said John Findlay, campaign manager for Mooney. “The failed attempt to conceal his finances from voters is the cherry on top of his scandal sundae. At this point, the more difficult question to answer is, ‘What are the other Jim Justice scandals we don’t know about yet?’”
Steven Allen Adams can be reached at sadams@newsandsentinel.com.
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