Justice coal firms pay off longstanding mine safety debt one year late, feds say

Federal prosecutors said in the filing last week the companies — along with non-defendant Bluestone Coal Corp., another Justice coal firm — had satisfied the debt set forth in that 2020 agreement per an additional February 2025 accord. In the 2025 deal, the companies — or Bluestone — committed to paying $125,000 on Feb. 27 and the remaining $284,014 of a $409,041 debt by May 1.

In the initial deal filed in April 2020 when Justice was governor, his companies agreed to make monthly payments of $102,442 after a one-time payment of $212,909 that month, putting them on a track to pay off the debt within four years from which they strayed.

The debt repayment covered five years of federal Mine Safety and Health Administration civil penalties dating back to 2014. Over that span, prosecutors complained to a Virginia federal court the Justice firms were chronically late on payments. In August 2024, they asked the U.S. District for the Western District of Virginia to hold the companies in civil contempt for their failure to pay.

At a January 2025 hearing, an attorney representing the companies claimed they are insolvent, with only one, Tams Management Inc., attempting to operate, and none having an ability to pay.

“Quite frankly, my client would be upset if I said it, but I’m just going to say it anyway. These companies are insolvent, and probably, bankruptcy organization is long overdue,� Salem, Virginia-based attorney, Aaron Houchens, told the court.

Massive debt, legal woes persist for Justice businesses

The debt repayment doesn’t erase longstanding debt and other legal woes that have plagued Justice’s coal firms.

Justice and his entities still owed $245.1 million at the end of March to a Virginia-based bank’s holding company, the company indicated in a 2025 first-quarter financial results announcement on April 24.

Martinsville, Virginia-based Carter Bankshares Inc., holding company of Carter Bank, reported Justice entities had paid $56.8 million of a $301.9 million debt as of March 31, 2024.

Carter Bank scheduled an auction of Greenbrier Sporting Club property that featured prominently in the Justice business empire last year to help satisfy a nine-figure Justice family debt to the bank. The auction was later canceled, and the Justice family and the bank announced the settlement of the dispute, in which the bank has sought $300 million-plus in debt admitted by the Justices.

Five of Justice’s coal companies, including Bluestone, have again failed to provide retirees health care coverage in violation of a collective bargaining agreement, retirees and the United Mine Workers of America union said in an April 2 court filing.

The reported failures were the latest in a yearslong string of intermittent lapses in contractually promised health care and prescription drug coverage that retirees have said resulted in the loss of critical medications.

In another April 2 court filing, a Kentucky tobacco warehouse company and an affiliated firm said two Justice coal company executives, including Justice’s son, James C. “Jay� Justice, stopped paying a daily contempt fine amid their noncompliance with a court order to share evidence in the case.

The filing alleged the defendants’ tax returns and other documents prepared from a general ledger show Jay Justice owes James C. Justice Companies nearly $32 million for shareholder loans made to him.

The filing cites two April 2022 ledger entries the plaintiffs say show that despite James C. Justice Companies entered a what appeared to be a Virginia land transfer as a total loss in a 2016 asset disposal report, its affiliate sold the property six years later for a $10.1 million profit.

James C. Justice Companies then used the proceeds as its own to pay down Virginia-based Carter Bank and falsely entered a corresponding entry increasing its debt to Sen. Justice by roughly $9.6 million, the filing alleges.