Gov. Jim Justice has been named in a new lawsuit involving multiple banks and claims on two properties adjacent to his Greenbrier Resort.
First Guaranty Bank of Hammond, Louisiana, filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia last week against People’s Bank of Marietta, Ohio.
The complaint also names as defendants Carter Bank, the Virginia lender that’s one of Justice’s biggest creditors; three additional West Virginia banks; the Greenbrier Hotel Corporation; the Greenbrier Medical Institute; Justice and the Justice Family Group.
First Guaranty seeks to restore its claim to liens on two properties in Greenbrier County, the Old White Lot and Kate’s Mountain, totaling more than 2,800 acres.
The properties were collateral for a $6 million loan made by a predecessor of People’s Bank, Premier Bank of Ravenswood.
First Guaranty alleges that People’s Bank prepared a document in 2022 without First Guaranty’s knowledge stating that the loan had been paid in full and releasing the liens on the properties.
First Guaranty’s complaint calls the People’s Bank declaration “unauthorized and improper.”
First Guaranty seeks at least $75,000 in damages and for the court to declare that the $6 million has not been paid in full and that the properties have not been released.
It also asks for “further relief as the nature of this cause and the interests of justice may require.”
Justice, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, faces multiple lawsuits in multiple states involving his business empire. The creditors of his numerous companies have sought the repayment of millions of dollars.
Among them, Carter Bank has sought to claim other properties near the Greenbrier Resort as collateral for unpaid loans.
Earlier this month, a federal judge in Roanoke, Virginia, ordered Justice’s Bluestone Resources to surrender a helicopter to partially satisfy a debt owed to a Caribbean investment firm.
