#

Geno Marconi may be a free man after Friday’s plea deal let him off with a $2,000 fine, but Pease Development Authority Vice Chair Neil Levesque said the truth is Marconi ran an “organized criminal conspiracy” as New Hampshire’s ports director.

Marconi pleaded guilty to one Class A misdemeanor count of violating the Driver Privacy Act for allegedly obtaining Levesque’s vehicle registration and sharing it with Bradley Cook, the former chair of a harbor advisory committee. Levesque said he is the victim of retaliation because he helped uncover Marconi’s various criminal schemes.

“I was but one witness who uncovered what I believe to be vast wrongdoing by the defendant. I was subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury to testify to what I knew, and I complied with my duty to provide that testimony,” Levesque said in a prepared statement. “I was subsequently the victim of retaliation as I, and others, worked to disclose what I believe to be a sophisticated, organized criminal enterprise run by the defendant.”

Levesque did not respond to NHJournal’s request that he elaborate on the accusations, which Marconi’s defense attorney, Richard Samdperil, called baseless.

“After four and a half years of investigation, including going through his personal finances, his family’s finances, his computer and phone, and months of interviews and similar proceedings, the state has never charged him with a criminal conspiracy or enterprise. It’s a baseless accusation,” Samdperil told NHJournal.

According to Samdperil, the state agreed to drop five criminal charges, including two felonies, that Attorney General John Formella originally brought against Marconi. The one charge to which Marconi agreed to plead guilty stems from his attempts to determine if Levesque had a conflict of interest, Samdperil claimed.

“He now acknowledges the Driver Privacy Act does not allow that,” Samdperil said.

Marconi told Rockingham Superior Court Judge David Ruoff that he is taking responsibility for his actions by pleading to the misdemeanor. The deal includes the fine, a 30-day jail sentence suspended for a year, and the stipulation that Marconi resign his post as ports director.

Marconi and Levesque were at odds for years before the charges were brought, as Levesque raised concerns about Marconi’s management at Rye Harbor, among his other responsibilities. The PDA conducted a third-party investigation into operations, which did not result in any criminal charges.

Levesque claims he feared for his safety after crossing Marconi.

“When it became clear that the defendant abused his power to spy on me, I was advised by the Attorney General’s Office to be physically careful because the actual physical safety of me and my family could be at risk. I have spent the past four years looking over my shoulder as a result. It is difficult to express the degree to which this kind of fear occupies the mind and interferes with the activities of daily life,” Levesque said.

Levesque hopes the full story will soon come out, with evidence to back up his claims that Marconi was operating a criminal conspiracy.

Marconi was placed on leave in April 2024 when the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office opened an investigation. But Samdperil said the investigation started in early 2021. At the time, two people who worked at the ports complained about Marconi to Formella, who was then Gov. Chris Sununu’s counsel, according to court records. Formella was nominated to be Sununu’s attorney general later in the spring of 2021.

Court records reveal the state wanted to introduce evidence that Marconi was investigated for allegedly taking kickbacks and engaging in COVID relief fraud. He was never charged with any crimes related to those inquiries. Instead, the charges were all connected to Marconi sharing Levesque’s vehicle registrations, which are considered private records under the law. Cook, who received the documents, has his own trial set for early next year.

This month, Ruoff ruled that even vehicle registrations submitted as part of an official application are documents covered by the Driver Privacy Act. Levesque submitted copies of his car and boat registrations for his pier permit application, which Marconi oversees, according to court records. In a motion filed two weeks ago, Samdperil pointed out that the PDA itself continues to make car and boat registrations for pier permits public documents as part of the board’s regular meeting proceedings.

Formella said in a statement that Marconi’s guilty plea shows the law applies to public servants, no matter how powerful.

“Public service is a privilege and a responsibility, not a right. Every public official must be held to a high standard and comply with the law,” said Formella. “This case demonstrates that accountability applies equally to all, regardless of position or relationship. The Department of Justice will continue to enforce the law fairly and independently to protect the public’s trust in its state government.”

Formella issued a similar statement after Marconi’s wife, New Hampshire Supreme Court Justice Anna Barbara Hantz, agreed to plead no contest to a single count of abuse of office in the wake of his investigation into her behavior regarding her husband’s case.

Hantz Marconi faced prison time for allegedly trying to get Sununu to intervene in her husband’s investigation last year. But Hantz Marconi’s plea deal allowed her to plead no contest to one Class B misdemeanor and pay a $1,200 fine.

She was back on the Supreme Court bench a week after her sentencing.

In both cases, the Marconis will not serve any jail time, and both are eligible for their state pensions.

Anna Barbara Hantz Marconi can now resume her duties on the New Hampshire Supreme Court, two days after her no-contest plea deal ended the criminal case against her, instigated by Attorney General John Formella.

Hantz Marconi cleared the final hurdle Thursday when the Supreme Court issued an order reinstating her law license. The court agreed with the Attorney Discipline Office that since Hantz Marconi is not guilty of a “serious crime,” there is no reason to withhold her license.

“We conclude that criminal solicitation (misuse of position) is not a ‘serious crime’ because it does not include, as a necessary element, interference with the administration of justice, false swearing, misrepresentation, fraud, deceit, bribery, extortion, misappropriation, or theft. Accordingly, we lift the respondent’s interim suspension and reinstate her to the practice of law, effective immediately,” the court ruled.

Under the state’s attorney discipline rules, Hantz Marconi’s license would have been in jeopardy if she were convicted of a serious crime. But the deal the Attorney General’s Office signed off on required a prosecutor to state in court that her no-contest plea to a Class B misdemeanor did not count as a conviction for a “serious crime.”

Confronted on Wednesday with news that the woman he prosecuted would likely be back on the bench 48 hours later, Formella said, “It’s not a decision we were aware would happen.”

Hantz Marconi agreed to an interim suspension last year when she was first indicted on two felonies and five Class A misdemeanors for allegedly trying to get Gov. Chris Sununu and Pease Development Authority Chair Steve Duprey to interfere with or stop the criminal investigation into her husband, former Ports Director Geno Marconi. At the time, she was also placed on administrative leave from her job on the court.

The plea deal she reached this week required prosecutors to dismiss all seven original indictments and bring one new misdemeanor count alleging she tried to get Sununu to improperly review her husband’s investigation during a June 6, 2024, conversation. She reportedly made an appointment to speak with Sununu about what she viewed as the political nature of the case against her husband and the fact that it was preventing her from doing her job. Hantz Marconi had been recusing herself from cases involving the Department of Justice for several months while her husband was under investigation.

Hantz Marconi denied wrongdoing during her no-contest plea hearing but acknowledged prosecutors could likely prove their case at trial. Before meeting with Sununu, Hantz Marconi said Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald told her she had every right to discuss her situation with the governor.

Sununu reportedly told Formella he saw nothing improper about the conversation. But the attorney general launched his own investigation into the judge, asking witnesses whether Hantz Marconi had told Sununu she thought he was “weak” and “very political,” according to court records.

Moments after her plea on Tuesday, the Supreme Court issued a ruling allowing her to return to work once her law license is reinstated. On Wednesday, the Attorney Discipline Office agreed with her attorney, Richard Guerriero, that the license should be reinstated. Thursday’s order from the court was the final hurdle.

Hantz Marconi still faces possible sanctions or a reprimand from either the Attorney Discipline Office or the Judicial Conduct Committee. But thanks to the plea deal from Formella’s office, Hantz Marconi has regained both her law license and her seat on the bench.

Thursday’s order was issued by five substitute judges, all from the Superior Court, who were assigned to act in place of the regular Supreme Court justices for matters related to Hantz Marconi. That arrangement was necessitated last year when the four other Supreme Court justices recused themselves from her case. Hantz Marconi had been fighting for the right to call her Supreme Court colleagues as witnesses in the trial that had been scheduled to start Nov. 4.

It is not clear whether Hantz Marconi will continue to recuse herself from cases involving the Department of Justice for the remainder of her term. She is required to retire in February when she turns 70.

A day after Attorney General John Formella’s prosecution of Supreme Court Justice Barbara Hantz Marconi fizzled into a single misdemeanor charge, the state’s top law enforcement officer suffered another setback as the courts cleared the way for her return.

Formella was asked about the court’s decision during a State House press event on Wednesday, announcing the Ayotte administration’s new plan to increase highway safety.

“As to the decision that the court made to rescind the orders putting her on leave, that’s not a decision we expected. It’s not a decision we were aware would happen,” Formella said.

In fact, Formella’s office played a key role in fast-tracking Hantz Marconi’s swift return to the state’s highest court. A stipulation in her negotiated plea deal required prosecutors to state on the record, in court, that she did not commit a “serious crime,” as defined by the rules governing the New Hampshire Attorney Discipline Office.

That opened the door for her defense attorney, Richard Guerriero, to seek Supreme Court approval to reinstate her law license on Wednesday.

After Formella’s office indicted Hantz Marconi last year on seven criminal charges — two felonies and five Class A misdemeanors — she was immediately placed on leave from the court and agreed to an interim suspension of her law license.

But moments after the case was resolved, with the attorney general dropping all previous charges and Hantz Marconi pleading no contest to a single Class B misdemeanor, the Supreme Court issued an order allowing her to return to work once her license was reinstated.

Guerriero then filed a motion with the Supreme Court late Wednesday in which Attorney Discipline Office General Counsel Brian Moushegian agreed that Hantz Marconi should get her license back, because she did not commit a “serious crime.”

“Moushegian specifically authorized (Guerriero) to represent the assent of his office to this motion to vacate the (2024) order suspending Justice Hantz Marconi from the practice of law on an interim basis and to reinstate that right,” Wednesday’s motion states.

Guerriero was unavailable for comment.

Several Granite State attorneys told NHJournal on background that they were surprised by Formella’s handling of the case — particularly his final move, which is allowing Hantz Marconi to return to the bench.

“Saying ‘I didn’t know this would happen’ is ridiculous. They had to know this was a strong probability when they agreed to the plea deal,” one veteran attorney told NHJournal. “There’s a reason the defense attorneys put the attorney general’s declaration of ‘no serious offense’ in the negotiations.”

There are also questions in the legal community about whether Hantz Marconi will actually return, with at least one potential hurdle remaining: the Attorney Discipline Office (ADO).

The ADO will still conduct its own investigation into Hantz Marconi, but that review can take place while she serves on the court, attorney Tony Soltani told NHJournal. And because Formella agreed to the “serious crime” declaration, the most the ADO could impose is a formal censure or reprimand — not removal from the bench.

“There’s nothing to stop her from going back to work,” Soltani said.

When WMUR’s Adam Sexton asked Formella about the court’s actions, he tried to put on a brave face, insisting that justice had been done.

“We ultimately charged the case because we felt that Justice Hantz Marconi had violated the law … by asking Gov. (Chris) Sununu to secure privileges for her that she wasn’t entitled to, and ultimately she was convicted of that conduct,” Formella said.

“I think I would say that from the perspective of the DOJ, we’re disappointed in (the court’s) decision, but it’s not our decision to make. That’s a decision for the court to make.”

Formella’s office did not respond to NHJournal’s inquiries on Wednesday about the likelihood of Hantz Marconi’s license being reinstated. But Hantz Marconi and her legal team appear to be following the path they negotiated with the Attorney General’s Office in her plea agreement.

Soltani likened the entire affair to Tom Wolfe’s novel “The Bonfire of the Vanities,” in which an overzealous prosecutor plays a central role.

“Ever since day one, this whole thing stunk to high heaven,” Soltani said.

Hantz Marconi’s prosecution is already having a chilling effect on lawmakers, Soltani added. A former Republican state representative, he said legislators have told him they are now wary of contacting state officials with constituent complaints.

“They don’t want to get indicted,” Soltani said. “I don’t think the AG did any favors for anybody in this state.”

“The state likely spent a small fortune investigating and prosecuting Hantz Marconi, brought seven indictments against her as a tactic to overwhelm her defense, and hobbled the New Hampshire Supreme Court for more than a year. Then they pled this thing down to aggravated jaywalking with a fine, and agreed it wasn’t a serious offense,” Soltani said.

“The Supreme Court was firing at 80 percent horsepower for over a year now, and for what? I still don’t know what her crime was. … This should never have gone as far as it did.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: Tony Soltani has represented reporter Damien Fisher in previous, unrelated 91A court cases. 

Anna Barbara Hantz Marconi isn’t planning to leave the New Hampshire Supreme Court just because she pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor count of attempting or soliciting improper influence from former Gov. Chris Sununu.

Moments after her plea and sentencing hearing Tuesday in Merrimack County Superior Court, Hantz Marconi’s legal team issued a defiant press release declaring her intent to remain on the state’s highest court for the rest of her term.

“Justice Hantz Marconi is very comfortable that she has made the best decision for herself, her family, and the State of New Hampshire. She looks forward to getting back to work,” the statement read.

The high court moved quickly to welcome her back, issuing an order late Tuesday lifting her administrative leave. Hantz Marconi will be allowed to resume serving on the Supreme Court if, as expected, the New Hampshire Attorney Discipline Office reinstates her law license. She voluntarily suspended her license last year when she was first indicted.

Meanwhile, Attorney General John Formella was notably absent from the courthouse on Tuesday. Despite his central role in the investigation—and the high stakes for his office—Formella was nowhere to be found.

Formella’s office indicted Hantz Marconi last October for allegedly attempting to involve Sununu in the criminal case against her husband, retired Portsmouth Ports Director Geno Marconi. She has been on administrative leave from the court since the controversial conversation with Sununu in June 2023.

Overall, Hantz Marconi’s no-contest plea represents a surprising victory for the embattled justice. It does not require her to resign from the Court or surrender her law license. She faces no jail time, and prosecutors agreed not to bring additional charges connected to the case — essentially, preemptive immunity. That is significant given the ongoing case against her husband, which could theoretically reveal evidence implicating her in his case.

It’s an embarrassing outcome for the Attorney General’s Office, several Granite State attorneys told NHJournal.

“Formella got outlawyered,” one Concord attorney said on background. “Then again, Bobbi (Marconi) had very good lawyers.”

Despite the plea resulting in a guilty finding, Hantz Marconi maintains her innocence.

Her lead attorney, Richard Guerriero, said in court that the charge alleged she improperly sought privileged information about the investigation into her husband through Sununu. She disputes the allegation, but by pleading no contest, she acknowledged prosecutors had sufficient evidence to proceed.

“We’re not contesting that the state could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she solicited Gov. Sununu to seek information regarding the investigation of Geno Marconi,” Guerriero said. “We’re not agreeing with those allegations, but we agree the state could make an offer of proof that would show she was soliciting Gov. Sununu to seek information into the investigation.”

Even with a misdemeanor conviction, Hantz Marconi emerged with a favorable outcome. Prosecutors dropped seven felony indictments that collectively carried up to 20 years in prison. Instead, she pleaded no contest to a single Class B misdemeanor, resulting in a $1,200 fine and $288 in court costs.

Prosecutors also stipulated in court that the misdemeanor does not qualify as a “serious crime” when reviewed by the New Hampshire Attorney Discipline Office. That makes it more likely Hantz Marconi will keep her law license and return to the bench.

Despite dropping all the original charges, Formella insisted that justice had been served.

“This is a sad and unfortunate case that reflects a serious breach of the public trust. Justice Hantz Marconi was an associate justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court when she arranged for a private meeting with the governor and then sought to obtain special treatment regarding an active criminal investigation involving her husband,” Formella said in a prepared statement.

“That conduct was unlawful and unethical, and it undermines confidence in our criminal justice system. Today’s conviction holds her accountable under the law.”

While Formella did not appear in court, Deputy Attorney General James Boffetti attended, accompanied by Public Integrity Unit prosecutors Dan Jimenez and Joe Fincham, during the plea and sentencing hearing.

Afterward, Fincham and Jimenez denied that the dismissal of the original indictments—or Formella’s absence—signaled any concession that Hantz Marconi had been correct in alleging bias. Jimenez said the deputy attorney general’s presence merely showed support for the line prosecutors—an unusual move, but not unprecedented.

There has been little standard procedure in the prosecution of Hantz Marconi for her conversation with Sununu last June. Both Sununu and a witness to the conversation, Rudolf Ogden, told investigators they did not believe she made any improper requests. Neither did witness Steve Duprey, chair of the Pease Development Authority, which oversees Geno Marconi’s work.

Hantz Marconi was initially charged with allegedly trying to get Duprey to intervene on her husband’s behalf, but those charges were dropped as part of the plea deal.

This summer, Guerriero accused prosecutors of trying to obscure Formella’s central role in the investigation. Evidence that Formella acted as the initial—and possibly sole—investigator was withheld from the defense for months, Guerriero said. Although the case was later reassigned to the Public Integrity Unit, Guerriero noted that no written complaint had been filed to open the PIU case, as is typically required for such cases.

Formella’s handling of the matter was expected to be a central issue at trial. The defense had subpoenaed him to testify and was pursuing motions to dismiss the charges and to disqualify the Attorney General’s Office entirely. Judge Martin Honigberg had not yet ruled on those motions when the plea deal was announced.

Interestingly, prosecutors suggested over the summer that if Formella were removed from the case, his deputy, Boffetti, could still oversee the prosecution. That is essentially what occurred—without any formal court order.

The trial would have featured a lineup of high-profile witnesses, including Sununu, Formella, Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald, and potentially all associate justices of the Supreme Court. Ogden, Sununu’s former counsel and now a Superior Court judge, was also expected to testify.

In her press release, Hantz Marconi said she sought to avoid a trial that could have forced top state officials to take the stand.

“Justice Hantz Marconi entered a no contest plea because she continues to disagree with the attorney general’s characterization of her actions,” the statement read. “She also sought to bring the case to an end without the spectacle and possible damage of a trial involving testimony by New Hampshire Supreme Court justices and other state officials.”

Geno Marconi is scheduled to go on trial in February. He is accused of illegally accessing private driving records and destroying evidence. It is unclear whether the resolution of his wife’s case will affect his upcoming trial.

Prosecutors want jurors to hear about Geno Marconi’s long and colorful — some say “controversial” — history when he goes on trial this fall, even though the former Ports Director has never been convicted of a crime.

Marconi, who ran New Hampshire’s Division of Ports and Harbors for decades, is at the center of a political scandal that has ensnared his wife, Associate Supreme Court Justice Anna Barbara Hantz Marconi. It’s also created headaches for former Gov. Chris Sununu, Attorney General John Formella, and Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald.

On Thursday, Marconi’s attorney, Richard Samdperil, filed a motion in Rockingham Superior Court objecting to the state’s plan to introduce evidence of “prior bad acts” during the November trial.

Prosecutors had notified the defense in a recent letter that they intended to present jurors with a “history lesson” on Marconi’s past conduct. Samdperil said that would be improper and irrelevant.

“In this matter, the State does not offer evidence of criminal convictions, as the defendant has none,” Samdperil wrote. “Rather, the State seeks to introduce other extrinsic acts for some as yet unspecified purpose.”

Under New Hampshire law, so-called “404(b)” evidence cannot be used simply to paint a defendant as a bad character. It can only be admitted if it is directly relevant to the current charges and proven by clear and convincing evidence. Samdperil argued prosecutors have not met that standard.

Marconi’s years as port director were often accompanied by controversy.

In 2006, he faced an internal investigation after complaints that he accepted gifts from ship captains and made racially insensitive jokes. He was never charged, but apologized for slurs reportedly aimed at a Middle Eastern ship captain and others. Among them, 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.”

He later underwent mandatory sensitivity training.

The same probe detailed allegations that Marconi used his state-issued truck for personal errands, stored his private boat at a state dock, and accepted lobsters, pheasants, and other gifts from people who did business with the port. Pease Development Authority officials said at the time that Marconi’s actions did not violate agency rules.

There were also darker moments. A year after the 2006 inquiry, longshoreman Bill Roach — one of the employees who complained about Marconi — reported that shots had been fired at his Rye home. Investigators later found a fake headstone with Roach’s initials at the port and a cage of dead rats outside his house. Despite three separate police investigations, no one was charged. Marconi denied involvement.

Today, Marconi faces felony charges of witness tampering and falsifying evidence, as well as misdemeanor charges for alleged violations of the Driver Privacy Act. Prosecutors say he improperly obtained private driving records for “N.L.” — a reference to Pease Development Authority Vice Chair Neil Levesque — and shared them with Bradley Cook, then chair of the port’s advisory council.

Levesque had butted heads with Marconi for years.

Marconi is also accused of deleting a voicemail that investigators said could have been used as evidence against him. Cook faces his own trial on related charges.

At the time, Levesque was applying for a pier permit, a process that already required vehicle registration records to be submitted to the port. That has fueled debate about whether Marconi’s actions truly broke the law.

The Marconi case has expanded well beyond the Portsmouth waterfront.

Justice Hantz Marconi is on paid leave from her Supreme Court position and is facing a trial of her own, accused of trying to pressure Sununu to intervene in her husband’s case. Sununu told investigators he didn’t believe she did anything wrong, but Attorney General Formella — who initiated the probe — has been named as a potential witness and is seeking to avoid testifying.

With both a former port director and a sitting Supreme Court justice under indictment, the case has drawn in some of New Hampshire’s most prominent political figures and raised questions about conflicts of interest at the highest levels of state government.

After being accused of withholding evidence, prosecutors agreed to drop their objections and allow a 60-day delay in the criminal trial of Associate Supreme Court Justice Anna Barbara Hantz Marconi.

The trial had been set for Sept. 2, but significant issues remain unresolved, including accusations that prosecutors are withholding evidence and manipulating the discovery schedule to disadvantage the defense. The defense is also questioning the role of Attorney General John Formella as the initial investigator in the case. And there is the broader legal question of what, if anything, sitting members of the state Supreme Court can be required to testify to on the witness stand.

On Thursday, Merrimack County Superior Court Judge Martin Honigberg ordered the trial pushed back until at least November. A hearing scheduled for Friday on the defense motion to dismiss the indictments and to disqualify Formella—along with the state’s motion to quash a defense subpoena seeking Formella’s testimony—has been postponed to the week of Sept. 2 under Honigberg’s order.

Hantz Marconi is charged with several counts for allegedly trying to get Gov. Chris Sununu and others to drop the investigation into her husband, former Ports Director Geno Marconi. The most significant charges involve events during a meeting in Sununu’s office last year at which the Republican governor’s lawyer, Rudy Ogden, served as a witness.

This week, Hantz Marconi’s attorneys, Richard Guerriero and Jonathan Kotlier, accused the state of playing games with the evidence. In a filing Monday, they said they have repeatedly requested records of Sununu’s meetings with other judges, similar to his meeting with Hantz Marconi.

Twice the state has claimed no such records exist, and twice the defense has disputed that assertion.

“Nevertheless, the defense believes that the State still possesses the requested material. For example, since October of 2024, the defense has been asking the State to produce records of Sununu’s meetings with other judges or justices. In writing, the State has twice denied possessing such evidence. Yet, the discovery produced by the State indicates that such meetings occurred,” Guerriero and Kotlier wrote.

According to the defense, the state also tried to shield Formella’s role as the original investigator who appears to have initiated the case against the sitting justice—a role they argue violates Department of Justice rules and could make Formella a material witness. Evidence implicating Formella as a potential witness was only recently released, the defense says, and prosecutors have argued it is now too close to the trial to litigate Formella’s alleged conflict of interest.

“The State would like to manipulate the proceedings so that no matter when the defense asserts Formella’s conflicts of interest, there will always be a procedural bar,” Guerriero and Kotlier wrote in a July 21 filing.

Before the delay, the stage was set for an unusual trial likely to feature testimony from a who’s who of state leaders about a murky set of facts. Sununu, Formella, Ogden, New Hampshire Supreme Court Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald, Pease Development Authority Chair Steven Duprey, and Associate Justices Patrick Donovan, Melissa Countway, and James Bassett are all potential witnesses.

Both Sununu and Ogden, who is now a Superior Court judge, have said Hantz Marconi did nothing improper or illegal during her conversation last year. Duprey also told investigators he spoke with Hantz Marconi and did not believe she crossed any legal or ethical lines.

Hantz Marconi maintains she was expressing frustration about recusing herself from Supreme Court cases involving the Department of Justice while her husband was being investigated by the Public Integrity Unit of the Attorney General’s Office. How that conversation became a criminal case remains unclear, given statements from Sununu, Ogden, and Duprey denying wrongdoing. It was not known until last month that Formella had initiated the investigation on his own.

Geno Marconi, who has since retired as Ports Director, faces trial in November on charges of illegally obtaining private driving records and sharing them with Bradley Cook. Cook, a fishing boat captain and former chair of a ports advisory committee, also faces charges in the alleged records scheme.

The case against Geno Marconi and Cook is as unusual as the one against Hantz Marconi. Prosecutors say Geno Marconi obtained and shared the car and boat registrations of Pease Development Authority Vice Chair Neil Levesque. However, according to records in Geno Marconi’s case, Levesque was applying for a pier permit at the time and was required to submit copies of his vehicle registrations. Court records indicate Marconi and Cook would have had access to those records in their official roles.

Levesque and Geno Marconi have clashed in recent years over Marconi’s management of businesses operating at Rye Harbor. A civil lawsuit accuses Marconi of targeting the owners of the Rye Harbor Lobster Pound restaurant to benefit his sister, Francesca Marconi Fernald, who operates Geno’s Chowder and Sandwich Shop, a business started by their parents.

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.

Geno Marconi used his authority as the New Hampshire Ports Director in an attempt to drive a rival business out of Rye Harbor, according to a lawsuit filed on Friday in Merrimack Superior Court.

The lawsuit, brought by the owners of the popular Rye Harbor Lobster Pound, may shed light on the criminal charges against Marconi and the scandal that’s ensnared his wife, Associate Supreme Court Justice Anna Barbara Hantz-Marconi.

Rye Harbor Lobster Pound owners Sylvia Cheever and Nathan Hansom claim Marconi has been trying to bounce their business for years in order to aid his sister, Francesca Marconi Fernald, who operates Geno’s Chowder & Sandwich Shop, a restaurant started by their parents.

According to the lawsuit, Geno Marconi made it impossible for customers to park at the Rye Harbor Lobster Pound, interfered with its business relationship with local lobster fishermen, and imposed a unique “concession fee” shakedown.

“The series of actions taken against Rye Harbor Lobster Pound were driven by Marconi’s desire to harm a competitor to his family business and in retaliation against the Plaintiffs who were not part of Marconi’s network of allied businesses and individuals who worked for or were otherwise connected with the Port Authority,” the lawsuit states.

The concession fee, which took effect in 2023, was a 10 percent tax on RHLP’s gross monthly revenue. In total, the PDA forced RHLP to hand over more than $115,000 in 2023 and 2024.

According to the lawsuit, no other harbor business pays a similar fee at that rate.

“Upon information and belief, no other business was subject to a concessions agreement which required to payment of so-called concessions fees during this time period,” the lawsuit states. 

RHLP has been operating since 1996, and selling prepared food since 2005, according to the lawsuit. The business, like others in the same location, has paid the same $1,000 fee for its right to operate at the harbor, which is controlled by the PDA.

Another business in the harbor which sells prepared food, Rye Harborside, pays the $1,000 minimum fee to operate. Rye Harborside is owned by Granite State Whale Watch, which has connections to Marconi, the lawsuit states.

“Granite State Whale Watch is owned and operated by Sue Reynolds and her son Pete Reynolds. Sue Reynolds’s partner is Leo Axtin, who at all times relevant to this complaint was the Rye Harbor Master and reported to Marconi as the port director,” the lawsuit states.

Marconi began the campaign against the RHLP in 2020, according to Cheever and Hanscom’s lawsuit, after the business managed to succeed despite the COVID-19 lockdowns, according to the lawsuit. Marconi began by trying to force RHLP to stop selling chowder. He failed.

In 2021 the PDA, with pressure from Marconi, refused to grant RHLP a concession agreement for the 2021 season, according to the lawsuit.

Following a public outcry, then-Gov. Chris Sununu stepped in and granted RHLP a waiver to operate. Marconi then had state employees monitor RHLP, Cheever, Hanscom, and their customers, taking videos and keeping a daily activity log, according to the lawsuit.

In subsequent years, the PDA and Marconi reportedly required RHLP to hire security details, undertake building renovations, and remove outdoor seating. Now, Cheever and Hanscom are concerned the PDA will try to block them from operating for the 2025 season.

The lawsuit is seeking an injunction against the PDA allowing Cheever and Hanscom to operate without being subjected to arbitrary rules and without paying Marconi’s shakedown money. They also want monetary damages for the harm Marconi and the PDA reportedly did to their business.

Marconi was suspended last year by the PDA as the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office opened its criminal investigation into his sketchy behavior. He’s since been indicted for allegedly leaking private driver’s license information and destroying evidence. Marconi recently filed paperwork to retire from his state job.

This isn’t the first time Marconi’s been the subject of a work-related controversy. In 2006, Marconi was accused of misusing public resources for his own benefit, taking improper gifts like lobsters and liquor in his role as ports director, and using racist slurs about a ship captain trying to do business with the state.

A subsequent drive-by shooting at the home of one witness who complained about Marconi has gone unsolved. No one was ever charged for shooting or other threats made against witnesses. Marconi has denied involvement.

Lawyers for Associate Supreme Court Justice Anna Barbara Hantz-Marconi say the state’s key witness, former Gov. Chris Sununu, doesn’t think she committed any crime.

Hantz-Marconi is charged with felonies for allegedly trying to get Sununu to end the criminal investigation targeting her husband, Ports Director Geno Marconi, during a June 6 meeting in Sununu’s office. 

But in a bombshell filing made public Monday night, Hantz-Marconi’s lawyers say new evidence demands the criminal charges against the sitting justice be dismissed. According to the transcripts filed with Hantz-Marconi’s motion, Sununu told investigators she never tried to get him to interfere in the criminal investigation.

“No, there was no ask, there was nothing, ‘Governor, I wish you could do this,’ or there was nothing like that,” Sununu said according to the transcript. “She was expressing frustration. Clearly not asking me to do anything.”

Defense lawyers Richard Guerriero and Jonathan Kotlier filed the transcripts Friday in Merrimack Superior Court as part of their effort to have the charges dismissed. The attorneys previously filed a motion to dismiss the charges for lack of a crime, to which the state objected. However, the state provided the transcripts to the defense before a decision on the dismissal was made. Guerriero and Kotlier say the state has essentially now proven there was no crime.

“[N]ow that discovery has been produced, it is clear that the defense was exactly right to ask the court to dismiss the indictments because they do not state any crime and because there is nothing in discovery which would inform a bill of particulars or an amended indictment such that the state could allege a crime,” Guerriero and Kotlier wrote.

Hantz-Marconi is currently on leave from the Supreme Court and has agreed to have her law license suspended pending the outcome of the criminal case. She maintains she never crossed any legal or ethical lines when talking to Sununu, an assertion seemingly backed by Sununu’s own words.

“I, I didn’t get the sense that, I didn’t get the sense that anything was illegal about the conversation,” Sununu told investigators. “No, I mean about halfway through the conversation I kept waiting, is she gonna ask me for something, or for something, or to do something, like and even imply that I should, ‘Governor, you need to dah, dah, dah,’ no, never came. So there’s technically no ask of me.”

Present at the June 6 meeting with Sununu and Hantz-Marconi was Rudy Ogden, Sununu’s then-legal counsel. Ogden also told investigators that the judge 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.

Geno Marconi was placed on leave from his position as Ports Director in April while the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office launched an investigation. That pending investigation forced Hantz-Marconi to recuse herself from hearing cases involving the Department of Justice, a significant part of the caseload for the Supreme Court.

Her frustration at sitting out 20 to 25 percent of the cases led her to speak to Sununu, according to statements filed in court. Hantz-Marconi has previously disclosed she first cleared the potential ethical problems of the meeting with Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald, who told her she had a right to talk to the governor about her concerns.

She is also accused of trying to get Pease Development Authority Chair Steven Duprey to intervene in her husband’s suspension, an accusation Duprey denied when he spoke to investigators, according to the Friday filing.

“According to Duprey, Justice Hantz Marconi ‘was calling, obviously, because I’m a friend.’”

Duprey told the investigators Hantz-Marconi understood he had no say in the investigation, and she never asked him to get involved. Instead she wanted to vent about the difficulties she was facing as a result of her husband’s legal troubles, Duprey said. 

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

Geno Marconi was indicted last October along with Brad Cook, the chairman of the Division of Ports and Harbors Advisory Council and a longtime fishing boat captain. They are accused of crimes involving leaking information about an unnamed victim to further an unstated motive.

Marconi illegally provided Cook with the confidential driving records of another person, known in the indictments as N.L., according to the indictments, and believed to be PDA Vice Chair Neil Levesque. 

Marconi also is alleged to have deleted a voicemail in order to hinder any investigation, the indictments state. Cook, for his part, is accused of lying to the grand jury when questioned about N.L.’s driving records.

In a statement, Attorney General John Formella’s office defended the decision to charge Hantz Marconi.

“The Merrimack County Grand Jury heard all of the evidence in this case and determined that there was probable cause to charge the defendant with the crimes for which she was indicted. This case will continue to proceed as required by New Hampshire law, and the defendant will be entitled to the same due process as any other defendant – no more, no less. We will try this case in court based on all of the evidence collected and not in the media using just a portion of that evidence.”

Prosecutors are more than two months late producing evidence against Ports Director Geno Marconi, his lawyers say, and they’ve filed a motion asking the court to force the state to start showing its hand. If not, the attorneys argue, an upcoming meeting on the disposition of the case should be canceled.

Marconi is charged with felonies in a scandal that’s also snared his wife, Associate Supreme Court Justice Anna Barbara Hantz Marconi, as well as a host of other Granite State political heavyweights.

Marconi’s lawyers filed a motion demanding discovery on Dec. 20, writing that the delays are holding up the case. Marconi was indicted by a grand jury in September, and his lawyers asked for discovery on Oct. 17, according to the motion. Marconi pleaded not guilty on Nov. 27.

“Although the pretrial disclosure in direct indictment cases is typically due 45 calendar days after the entry of a not guilty plea by the defendant … it has now been over 90 days since the defendant was indicted and more than 60 days since discovery was requested,” lawyers Richard Samdperil and Joseph Welsh wrote.

But Rockingham Superior Court Judge Andrew Schulman isn’t pausing the case calendar. In an order issued Dec. 31, Schulman wrote that he “assumes” prosecutors are in the process of getting evidence, including any exculpatory evidence, to Marconi’s lawyers. The case is currently set for a dispositional conference on Jan. 14. 

Marconi is charged with two class B felonies – Tampering with Witnesses and Informants and Falsifying Physical Evidence. He’s also charged with four class A misdemeanors – two counts of Driver Privacy Act Violations and two counts of Obstructing Government Administration.

Marconi and Brad Cook, chairman of the Division of Ports and Harbors Advisory Council and a longtime fishing boat captain, are accused of crimes involving leaking information about an unnamed victim to further an unstated motive.

Marconi illegally provided Cook with the confidential driving records of another person, known in the indictments as N.L., according to the indictments. Marconi also is alleged to have deleted a voicemail message in order to hinder any investigation, the indictments state. Cook, for his part, is accused of lying to the grand jury when questioned about N.L.’s driving records.

It is known that Marconi’s bail orders prohibit him from contacting Neil Levesque, a member of the Pease Development Authority Board. It’s also been reported that Levesque, Pease Development Authority Chair Steve Duprey, and the rest of the board met with Attorney General John Formella and Gov. Chris Sununu in April to discuss the emerging criminal investigation against Marconi.

Marconi and Cook both opposed the PDA’s plan to redevelop Rye Harbor to make it more retail friendly, a plan that Sununu supported. 

Marconi was placed on leave in April, after the meeting with Formella. Hantz-Marconi was forced to recuse herself from Supreme Court cases involving the Department of Justice while the criminal investigation proceeded. Frustrated at being sidelined, Hantz-Marconi met with Sununu in July to talk about the investigation interfering with her ability to serve on the court.

That conversation between Hantz-Marconi and Sununu became the basis for the criminal charges against the associate justice. She’s accused of trying to pressure Sununu to drop the investigation, though she strongly denies that is the case. Hantz-Marconi denies she did anything wrong. In court documents her lawyers have filed, it was learned Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald told her before the July meeting with Sununu that there would be nothing improper with the conversation.

The entire Supreme Court has since recused itself from Hantz-Marconi’s criminal case, as well as from her state attorney discipline process.