West Virginia Sen. Jim Justice has agreed to pay nearly $5.2 million to settle back taxes and penalties hours after federal prosecutors filed a lawsuit on Monday, seeking to collect the money.
Attorneys for the former lawmaker and his wife, Cathy, entered into a joint motion for a consent judgement with the federal government after prosecutors alleged the couple failed to pay nearly $5.2 million in taxes, interest, and penalties for the 2009 tax year.
The settlement closes one chapter in a lengthy list of legal actions brought against the couple.
The former two-term governor, who left the Democratic Party in 2017, has seen his family’s wealth, which once reached nearly $2 billion, plummet in recent years.
Justice’s office did not return a request for comment about Monday’s settlement by publication time.
The lawmaker told reporters in October he believed the IRS’s claims against him were politically motivated.
“It’s just a situation we’ve got to go through,” Justice told The Inter-Mountain, a West Virginia-based news outlet, at the time.
“It’s more of a political move but at the same time, it’s just a situation that big companies deal with all the time. You saw all the stuff President Trump dealt with. At the end of the day, I’d say just let it be and see how it all plays out.”
Justice was estimated to be worth about $1.9 billion at one time before his worth tumbled to “less than zero,” according to Forbes magazine.
Before taking office as governor, Justice was president of his family’s coal mining operations and Justice Family Farms, among other holdings. The operations included a significant coal reserve, Christmas tree farms, cotton gins, turfgrass operations, golf courses, timber, and land projects.
In 2017, the senator placed his son, James C. Justice III, in charge of the coal and agriculture businesses, and his daughter, Jill Justice, as president of the Greenbrier Hotel Corporation. The senator maintains majority control of his business empire, including multi-million-dollar lines of credit.
Justice said his tax issues started in 2009 with audits by the IRS.
Despite Monday’s settlement, the senator and his wife face ongoing tax-related issues.
The IRS also filed two tax liens against the Justices last month totaling more than $8 million for unpaid personal taxes, which also date back to 2009.
In September, state tax officials filed $1.4 million in liens against the Justice family’s historic hotel, The Greenbrier, and the resort’s Greenbrier Sporting Club, for alleged unpaid sales taxes.
The hotel, which has hosted U.S. presidents, royalty, and congressional retreats, was nearly auctioned off in the past before the family settled its debts in a separate case.
The West Virginia Democratic Party, which continues to be a constant critic of the senator, stated in August that government efforts to seize the hotel from Justice were “a direct consequence of his own financial incompetence.”
Justice, 74, was first elected governor of West Virginia in 2016 as a registered Democrat. In less than a year, he switched his party affiliation to Republican, announcing the decision after spending a day hunting with Donald Trump Jr. He was reelected governor in 2020 and elected to the U.S. Senate in 2024.
A year after Justice switched parties, federal agencies under the Biden administration began citing his family mining operation for regulatory violations and issued 50 cease-and-desist orders.
The Justice Department filed a civil action against the Republican senator and his wife, who live in Lewisburg, in 2023 for allegedly violating federal mining law 130 times over a five-year period.
“After [being] given notice, they then failed to remedy those violations and were ordered over 50 times to cease mining activities until their violations were abated,” said former U.S. Attorney Christopher Kavanaugh for the Western District of Virginia.
The DOJ is seeking more than $7.6 million in penalties for violations of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act between 2018 and 2022. The case is ongoing.
In a separate action, a settlement was reached in 2020 when the family agreed to pay more than $4 million to satisfy claims based on alleged violations of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act.
The federal government in August 2024 asked the court to hold 23 of the family’s coal companies in contempt for unpaid obligations under the 2020 settlement, claiming the family still owed $579,041 to the government.
In another case, a federal court issued a seizure order on Nov. 5 against three of the Justice family’s coal companies to satisfy a $150,000-plus judgment against them in favor of trustees of a mine workers’ benefits plan. A court order in 2023 found the firms were liable for nearly six years of unpaid premiums under a union retiree health benefits plan.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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