CHARLESTON, WV — West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, is working to save the iconic Greenbrier hotel.
A legal notice announcing a public auction of a luxury resort near White Sulphur Springs due to unpaid debts was published in the West Virginia Daily News on Wednesday, just the latest in the Justice family’s financial woes.
Justice, who owns dozens of companies and has a net worth of $513 million in 2021, according to Forbes magazine, has been in court multiple times for allegedly failing to pay millions of dollars in debt to his family’s businesses and fines for unsafe working conditions at coal mines.
Justice, who began his first of two terms as governor in 2017, bought the Greenbrier out of bankruptcy in 2009, having hosted U.S. presidents and royalty. The PGA Tour held tournaments at the resort from 2010 to 2019.
His family also owns The Greenbrier Sporting Club, a private luxury community with a members-only “resort within a resort.” The property was set to be auctioned this year in an effort by Carter Bank. & The Martinsville Trust Bank in Virginia has been trying to collect more than $300 million in delinquent business loans from the governor’s family, but the process has been delayed by a legal battle between the Justice family and the bank.
The auction, which covers the 60.5-acre property, including the hotel itself and an adjacent parking lot, is scheduled for 2 p.m. Aug. 27 at the Greenbrier County Courthouse in Lewisburg, according to a notice posted Wednesday.
A Justice spokeswoman said the impending auction is not a state matter and the governor’s office would not comment. Campaign staff did not respond to an email from The Associated Press on Thursday.
In a statement to West Virginia MetroNews, Attorney General Bob Wolford accused lender JPMorgan Chase Bank of joining forces with Democrats “to undermine West Virginia’s next Republican senator.”
The statement said the Justice family originally secured a $142 million loan from JPMorgan Chase in 2014, and after paying it off as of June this year, they now owe just $9.4 million.
On July 1, the governor was notified by JPMorgan Chase that Justice’s loan had been sold to Beltway Capital, which declared Justice’s loan in default.
“Greenbrier will not be sold, and the Justice family will take all steps necessary to ensure that there will be no negative impact to the ownership or operations of Greenbrier, and that Greenbrier’s ability to continue to provide world-class service to its customers will not be interrupted,” Woolford told MetroNews.
