#

Associate Supreme Court Justice Anna Barbara Hantz-Marconi continues to push for a dismissal of the criminal charges against her, saying there’s no evidence she did anything illegal.

Merrimack Superior Court Judge Martin Honigberg is considering her motion to dismiss after Monday’s hearing in Concord. Hantz-Marconi is facing felony charges for allegedly trying to pressure former Gov. Chris Sununu and Pease Development Authority Chair Steve Duprey into dropping the criminal investigation of her husband, Geno Marconi, the former state ports director.

Hantz-Marconi’s lawyer, Richard Guerrero, told Honigberg that witness interviews recorded by prosecutors demonstrate no crime was committed.

“Our position is that even Supreme Court justices have a right to speak to public officials about matters of public concern and about matters of private concern, and we don’t think that these indictments, any of them, state a crime,” he said.

But Assistant Attorney General Joe Fincham argued a jury ought to decide if a crime was committed based on Hantz-Marconi’s intent, not just the words she allegedly spoke to Sununu and Duprey.

“So that is the ultimate issue, frankly, in this trial: what was her intent? Was it a benign protected First Amendment intent, or was it a corrupt criminal intent?” Fincham said.

If Hantz-Marconi was intent on pressuring Sununu to drop the investigation, the key prosecution witness seems to have not noticed. According to the transcripts filed with Hantz-Marconi’s motion to dismiss, Sununu told investigators she never tried to get him to interfere in the Geno Marconi criminal investigation.

“No, there was no ask, there was nothing ‘Governor, I wish you could do this,’ or there was nothing like that. She was expressing frustration. Clearly not asking me to do anything,” Sununu told investigators. “I, I didn’t get the sense that, I didn’t get the sense that anything was illegal about the conversation.”

Hantz-Marconi met with Sununu on June 6, 2024, in his office, along with Rudy Ogden, Sununu’s then legal counsel. At the time, Hantz-Marconi was recusing herself from sitting in on Supreme Court cases involving the New Hampshire Department of Justice due to the investigation into her husband.

Geno Marconi was placed on leave from his job in April, and a criminal investigation took off. By October, Geno Marconi was indicted for allegedly giving another person the private driver’s record of an individual known as N.L., and for destroying evidence.

Hantz Marconi was indicted the same week for her alleged attempt to pressure Sununu and Duprey into dropping the investigation. The charges are based on a phone call Hantz-Marconi made to Duprey and the June 6 conversation with Sununu. Ogden told investigators that Hantz-Marconi never asked Sununu to get involved in her husband’s investigation.

“[T] hat’s why I say in terms of her not asking for anything, it – it never was, it never went more than saying this needs to end quickly…Like it was never it needs to end quickly and geez, if you talk to them you should tell them that, or this needs to end quickly and I think you can do that. It was never anything like that,” Ogden told investigators.

Duprey told investigators he spoke with Hantz-Marconi as a friend, and listened as she expressed her frustrations with the ongoing criminal investigation.

“I think she was very appropriate in not trying to cross the line,” Duprey said.

Duprey and the PDA had placed Geno Marconi on paid leave in April after being told of the investigation by New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella. That disclosure occurred in April at the Department of Justice in a meeting attended by Sununu.

Facing criminal charges, Geno Marconi recently submitted paperwork to retire from his state job. He’s also a defendant, along with the PDA, in a new lawsuit brought by owners of the Rye Harbor Lobster Pound. The lobster shack owners claim Marconi used his position as ports director to hurt their business in order to help friends and family with competing businesses.

Geno Marconi’s sister owns the nearby Geno’s Chowder & Sandwich Shop, a restaurant started by their parents.

Why is state Supreme Court Justice Barbara Hantz Marconi is on administrative leave — a drastic action rarely taken by a sitting jurist? New Hampshire officials won’t say.

Is it related to the grand jury now reportedly convened to consider criminal charges against husband, Geno Marconi? Again, no word.

“This must shake the faith that citizens should expect to have in their public institutions and those who work for them as well as those who have oversight for them,” the New Hampshire Union-Leader editorialized this weekend.

Without information from the Sununu administration or the judiciary, speculation has turned to Geno Marconi and his troubled past.

Geno Marconi was placed on leave as the Director for the New Hampshire Division of Ports and Harbors in April. The reasons for the action have not been made clear, but it has been known for weeks that he is being investigated by the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office.

NHPR reports witnesses are being called to testify before a grand jury. Grand jury proceedings are secret and officials will not comment unless and until indictments are handed up.

Marconi’s colorful past includes 2006 allegations he misused public resources for his own benefit, that he took improper gifts like lobsters and liquor in his role as ports director, and he used racist slurs about a ship captain trying to do business with the state.

The troubling aftermath of the 2006 complaints against Marconi include a drive-by shooting at the home of one of the witnesses and alleged other threats. No one was ever charged for shooting or other threats, and Marconi has denied involvement.

Last week, the public learned for the first time that Justice Hantz Marconi has been recusing herself from cases involving the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office. Though she has sat in on oral arguments in cases involving the state’s top law enforcement agency, Hantz Marconi has reportedly not taken part in deliberations or decisions in those cases. 

Geno Marconi kept his job after apologizing in 2006 for reportedly calling a ship captain of Middle Eastern descent a “sand n*gger” a “camel jockey,” and a “towel head.” He was also accused of calling someone else a “New York Jew with the chink wife.” 

Geno Marconi told investigators that while he likely did use the term “sand n*gger” it was not about that particular captain. He also denied making the other remarks. He was required to undergo sensitivity training as a result of the investigation.

There were also complaints about his management practices. According to a New Hampshire Attorney General’s supplemental report, Marconi took advantage of his position in several ways: he used his state-issued truck for personal errands like picking up sheetrock; he used a state forklift to drop private boat moorings; stored his private boat as a state dock; and took gifts like lobsters, pheasant, and a bottle of ouzo from ship captains and fishermen who did business with the Port of New Hampshire.

Portsmouth Development Authority Officials would tell investigators that while Marconi operated within the rules in those instances, reforms would be considered going forward. 

A year later, Bill Roach, one of the longshoremen who complained about Marconi’s behavior, reported someone shot at his Rye home. Soon after that, a fake headstone with Roach’s initials and the initials RIP was found at the port. A short time later, a cage of dead rats was left outside Roach’s home. 

Despite three separate police investigations, no charges were ever brought for the threats against Roach. Marconi denied any involvement. Roach was president of the International Longshoremen’s Association and at the time he and several other longshoremen filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the state and the port. The lawsuit claimed Marconi took away their port jobs after they made their complaints about his alleged slurs.

The lawsuit ended up being dismissed when the New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled the longshoremen were contractors and not state employees. As such, they did not qualify for whistleblower protection. 

Hatz Marconi built a career as a private lawyer, becoming a shareholder at the law firm of Sheehan, Phinney, Bass and Green. Gov. Chris Sununu nominated Hantz Marconi to be Associate Supreme Court Justice in 2017. 

Now she’s on mandatory leave and, for the moment, Granite Staters continue to be left in the dark.