Johnathan Walker:Family of Gov. Jim Justice, candidate for US Senate, reaches agreement to avoid hotel foreclosure

CHARLESTON,Johnathan Walker W.Va. (AP) — The family of West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice has reached an agreement with a credit collection company to avoid the foreclosure of their historic hotel as he runs for U.S. Senate, the resort announced Thursday.

The Republican governor’s family was set to appear in court Friday asking a judge to halt the auction of The Greenbrier, which had been scheduled for Tuesday. Whether that hearing is still planned is unclear.

The hotel came under threat of auction after JPMorgan Chase sold a longstanding loan taken out by the governor to a credit collection company, McCormick 101 — a subsidiary of Beltway Capital — which declared it to be in default. In a statement, the Justice family said it had reached an agreement with Beltway Capital to “receive a specific amount to be paid in full by October 24, 2024.”

The family said it had already secured the money, although the Justices did not specify the amount.

“Under the agreement, Beltway Capital will Beltway reserves its rights if the Justice family fails to perform,” the statement reads.

A message left with Beltway Capital wasn’t immediately returned Thursday.

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The auction, which had been set to occur at a courthouse Tuesday in the small city of Lewisburg, involved 60.5 acres, including the hotel and parking lot.

Justice family attorneys filed a motion this week for a preliminary injunction to try to halt the auction of The Greenbrier. They claimed that a 2014 deed of trust approved by the governor was defective because JPMorgan didn’t obtain consent from the Greenbrier Hotel Corp.'s directors or owners, and that auctioning the property violates the company’s obligation to act in “good faith and deal fairly” with the corporation.

They also argued, in part, that the auction would harm the economy and threaten hundreds of jobs.

About 400 employees at The Greenbrier hotel received notice this week from an attorney for the health care provider Amalgamated National Health Fund saying they would lose coverage Tuesday, the scheduled date of the auction, unless the Justice family paid $2.4 million in missing contributions.

Peter Bostic, a union official with the Workers United Mid-Atlantic Regional Joint Board, said that the Justice family hasn’t contributed to employees’ health fund in four months, and that an additional $1.2 million in contributions will soon be due, according to the letter the board received from Ronald Richman, an attorney with Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP, the firm representing the fund.

The letter also said some contributions were taken out of employees’ paychecks but never transferred to the fund, concerning union officials.

The Greenbrier leadership did not comment on the status of the health insurance issue Thursday. The Associated Press sent an email to Bostic seeking comment.

Justice is running for U.S. Senate against Democrat Glenn Elliott, a former mayor of Wheeling. Justice, who owns dozens of companies and had a net worth estimated at $513 million by Forbes Magazine in 2021, has been accused in court cases of being late in paying millions for family business debts and fines for unsafe working conditions at his coal mines.

He began serving the first of his two terms as governor in 2017, after buying The Greenbrier out of bankruptcy in 2009. The hotel has hosted U.S. presidents, royalty and, from 2010 until 2019, a PGA Tour tournament.

Justice’s family also owns The Greenbrier Sporting Club, a private luxury community with a members-only “resort within a resort.” That property was scheduled to be auctioned off this year in an attempt by Carter Bank & Trust of Martinsville, Virginia, to recover more than $300 million in business loans defaulted by the governor’s family, but a court battle delayed that process.