By Mike Tony
For HDMedia
Sen. Jim Justice, R-W.Va., and his family have moved to put on hold a case pressed by an international hotel chain affiliate looking to take over their debt-ridden Greenbrier resort network of firms, arguing the takeover bid is rooted in an invalid purchase of their nine-figure debt.
Meanwhile, new evidence has surfaced in a separate federal court case dogging another Justice-controlled company aligned with the hotel chain affiliate’s claim that the senator’s business empire has relied on shifting funds between each other that results in a record-keeping conversion of that debt into income.
A motion filed on behalf of Justice, his wife Cathy, son Jay and six Greenbrier network-related companies on Friday asks the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia to place on hold a case filed April 9 by White Sulphur Springs Holdings LLC, an affiliate of Dallas-based Omni Hotels & Resorts, seeking receivership for the historic Greenbrier resort and web of related firms.
The request from the newly formed White Sulphur Springs Holdings follows it buying $289 million in loans, subsequently reduced to judgments, related to entities in which Justice had an interest, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing in March from the seller of the loans, Carter Bankshares Inc., parent company of Martinsville, Virginia-based Carter Bank.
White Sulphur Springs Holdings seeks the immediate appointment of a receiver over each of the Justice family’s companies with the authority to seize control of the firms, assets and operations, the right to start further legal proceedings regarding other non-debtors, and a permanent injunction to prevent the Justices and their current businesses from any actions that hinder the receiver’s authority to operate the companies.
But the Justices on Friday asked the court to stand down in its consideration of the case until the Greenbrier County Circuit Court decides whether White Sulphur Springs Holdings has a right to enforce the loan agreements and thus pursue a receivership in a pending case the Justices filed subsequently in the circuit court to try blocking the Omni affiliate’s takeover push.
“There is no need for this [West Virginia Southern District] Court to jump into the fray and expend judicial resources until that critical threshold question is resolved,” the Justices’ Friday filing said of whether what it calls the “purported sale of the loans” to White Sulphur Springs Holdings must be rescinded.
White Sulphur Springs Holdings has contended the defendants have been “diverting substantial amounts of revenue generated from The Greenbrier [r]esort to their other, unrelated businesses,” resulting in “significant unpaid taxes” for the resort, not making all required payments to resort employees — including employees’ health insurance premiums and 401(k) employer matching contributions — and the resort itself “not being properly operated and maintained.”
Testimony: Justice firm owed debt recorded as revenue
A deposition in a separate federal court case filed on May 5 suggests Justice companies have a system of moving money between each other that results in debt being recognized as income.
The April 28 deposition in Salem, Virginia, of former Justice company tax return preparer and retired certified public accountant Valerie Lynn Hamlet came in a case in which environmental groups are seeking to force the Justice-controlled A&G Coal Corp. to comply with past mine site reclamation agreements.
Hamlet testified that she was the Justice family’s full-time, salaried “in-house director of tax” for most of January 2020 through January 2023, responsible for the tax work for nearly 100 Justice companies and preparing tax returns for Jim, Cathy and Jay Justice.
Hamlet further testified that $29 million in accounts payable to related parties reported for Roanoke, Virginia-based A&G Coal consists of what it and its subsidiaries owe to other Justice companies — and that if A&G never pays the liability to the other Justice firms, “they would have to clean up their books.”
“It’s pretty much got to stay there until they pay it or the other company writes it off, and they can’t decide to write it off themselves,” Hamlet said.
Hamlet testified that if the other Justice company decides to write off the debt, it could then be removed as a liability from “A&G’s books.”
“Cancellation of debt is income,” Hamlet said.
Earlier in the deposition, Hamlet testified that it would be an “easy fix” for Jay Justice, as A&G president, to put money into the company to increase its net worth on the books to $1 million.
Hamlet indicated that the Justices’ Bluestone Resources Inc. canceled roughly $10.3 million in debt owed by A&G on Dec. 31, 2025, resulting in that amount being recorded as revenue for A&G.
The case filed in 2023 by the environmental group plaintiffs, Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards, Appalachian Voices and the Sierra Club, prompted A&G Coal to agree to finish reclaiming three Virginia mine sites the groups said were years behind in complying with past reclamation agreements.
A&G has claimed a lack of income or cash to fulfill its mine reclamation obligations.
But Appalachian Voices Coal Impacts Program manager Willie Dodson told the Gazette-Mail Wednesday that the most important takeaway from Hamlet’s deposition is that according to A&G’s figures, the company is in the black, contradicting the company’s previous claim of being unable to comply with the terms of the consent decree.
“If A&G truly has access to monetary resources, it must — under the law and under the consent decree — use those resources to complete reclamation at its mines in Wise County and to pay penalties stipulated under the consent decree,” Dodson said.
Neither Justice’s Senate office nor Salem, Virginia-based A&G attorney Aaron Houchens responded to requests for comment.
Justice firm pattern of hidden transactions alleged
Two Kentucky companies have presented evidence to contend that Jim Justice’s business empire is hiding hundreds of millions of dollars in assets in a federal court case in which they have been trying for years to collect on an eight-figure judgment against Justice-controlled firms.
New London Tobacco Market Inc. and Fivemile Energy LLC brought the case in 2012 after a Justice family firm, Kentucky Fuel Corp., failed to mine coal under an agreement following the plaintiffs’ assignment of rights to mine coal in eastern Kentucky to the defendants in exchange for a cut of the mined coal.
In 2014, the plaintiff companies secured a default judgment against the Justice firms. In 2023, they were awarded more than $18 million in lost tonnage royalties, attorney expenses and unpaid retainer fees, plus interest.
In a Kentucky federal court filing in March, New London Tobacco Market and Fivemile Energy told the court that Kentucky Fuel and James C. Justice Companies Inc. have balance sheets showing nearly $500 million in assets but that the plaintiffs have yet to collect on their judgment.
The plaintiffs attributed that to what they said was the defendants’ refusal to respond to post-judgment evidence-sharing by providing complete information on assets including unpaid loans to Jay Justice and diversions of money to affiliates and shareholders.
The Kentucky plaintiffs said they have identified a pattern of hidden transactions used by the defendants and their officers to avoid collection against the assets of what they hold are half-billion-dollar companies.
That pattern, they say, includes the defendants entering into sizeable transactions with one of their 100-plus affiliates or directly with their shareholders and hiding the evidence of the transfers by refusing to disclose the transactions unless the plaintiffs find them first and intentionally not retaining documents that explain transactions in their accounting records or disclosing documents or information regarding their transactions to their attorneys.
“And with every nonresponse, opposition, and excuse, the aim of the Defendants’ owners and officers is clear — to protect the Justice family of companies’ business model,” the plaintiffs said, adding that their approach has allowed the defendants’ owners and officers to “fly by private jet, hire white-collar law firms for the appeal, etc., while pleading poverty in this case.”
In July 2024, the District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky ordered defendant company officers Jay Justice and Stephen Ball in contempt of court for their companies’ failure to comply with the court’s orders regarding post-judgment evidence discovery.
District Judge Gregory Van Tatenhove ordered Jay Justice and Ball to pay $250 per day for noncompliance with a discovery order — a fine later increased to $1,000 per day.
The plaintiffs contend that James C. Justice Companies tax returns show that from 2014 through 2019, the firm transferred its shareholders, including Jay Justice, more than $159 million in loans, with the defendants claiming without evidence that the unidentified transfers were repayment of purported loans from shareholders.
Ball, as vice president and general counsel for the defendants, said in a February 2021 case declaration that when Justice family-owned entities loan one another money, no notes or payment schedules are executed or prepared.
Jay Justice reports decline in Greenbrier bookings
White Sulphur Springs Holdings alleged in an amended complaint filed May 1 that in the company’s efforts to “reach an amicable solution” with the defendants to get them to pay their debt, Jim Justice and his counsel threatened the company at an April 6 meeting at The Greenbrier resort.
White Sulphur Springs Holdings alleged Justice and his counsel informing the company that the Justice defendants “had influence over or appointed all the state court judges in West Virginia and that WSSH could not get a fair trial in West Virginia.”
In an emailed statement, Justice family attorney Steve Ruby said that allegation was “categorically false” and that Jim Justice “makes no claim to have influence with any judge, whether he appointed them or not.”
In Friday’s filing, the Justices reiterated their claim that Omni parent company TRT Holdings Inc. bought the Justices’ loans via White Sulphur Springs at least in part because of confidential information it received under false pretenses.
They have said that accusation stems from Blake Rowling and TRT Holdings executive vice president Michael Smith visiting The Greenbrier in September 2024 under the pretense of serving as advisers to an unnamed private equity firm that funded another payoff proposal presented in March 2026 by the Justices to Carter Bank.
TRT obtained access to confidential information belonging to The Greenbrier under a confidentiality agreement between Greenbrier Hotel Corp. and the private equity firm, with the accord providing that no one subject to its provisions could use any information obtained through it for any purpose other than the financing transaction being considered by the private equity firm, the Justices have asserted.
The Justices have claimed TRT’s true motive in obtaining their properties’ confidential information was to boost its effort to acquire The Greenbrier, including proprietary pricing, marketing and reservation information, confidential financial records and access to areas of The Greenbrier resort complex off limits to the public.
In their Friday filing, the Justices said that The Greenbrier is operating at a profit and that there is no basis for what it called “sweeping preliminary injunctive relief” sought by White Sulphur Springs Holdings.
In a new declaration submitted to the court Friday, Jay Justice testified that The Greenbrier employs roughly 2,000 people at peak season, with some 660 guest rooms, over 40 meeting rooms, and more than 200,000 square feet of conference and event space accommodating corporate events, weddings and other large-scale events.
Jay Justice asserted that White Sulphur Springs Holdings’ efforts to collect on the loans and resulting publicity are causing “significant, ongoing harm” to The Greenbrier reputation and customer base.
The senator’s son said that since what he called White Sulphur Springs Holdings’ false claim that The Greenbrier is in disrepair, more than 20 business and other groups that either have made or were considering making large reservations have contacted The Greenbrier to express concerns about its stability.
“The decline in bookings will have a serious negative impact on The Greenbrier’s revenues,” Justice testified.
White Sulphur Springs Holdings contends that its collateral is being negatively impacted by Justice defendants’ lack of stewardship, alleging they have diverted nearly all operating cash flow from The Greenbrier resort since 2018, totaling hundreds of millions of dollars, into other ventures. The Omni affiliate says the diversions have left far less than the standard recommended for capital expenditure reserves on hand for a resort operation of the resort’s size (at least 4% of revenue).
The Omni affiliate said The Greenbrier resort’s occupancy rate has declined more than 10% since 2022 in stark contrast with its regional competitors.
White Sulphur Springs Holdings contends that a 2025 appraisal of the Greenbrier Hotel Corp. showed about $67 million in capital expenses from 2017 through 2024 but that a review of underlying financial records indicates actual capital expenses were less than half of what the appraisal stated — and included nearly $5 million the Justice defendants used to buy a helicopter and a private jet.
In 2024, federal marshals seized a helicopter owned by Justice’s Bluestone Resources Inc. in response to Bluestone not paying any of a roughly $13 million 2021 judgment against it.
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