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There never was and never will be a plan to sell Nashua’s water company to a Chinese beverage company, Mayor Jim Donchess said Tuesday night.

“I think you’ve been told things that aren’t true,” Donchess said.

People from outside the city crowded into the Gate City’s Board of Aldermen meeting Tuesday, stirred up by politicians like GOP congressional candidate Lily Tang Williams and U.S. Rep. Maggie Goodlander (D-NH02), who have been sounding alarms about Nongfu Spring.

Nongfu is China’s largest private beverage company and paid $67 million for a commercial property in the city earlier this year. Much has been made about the seemingly secretive nature of the purchase. But Donchess labeled those concerns fake news. Nongfu was openly invited into New Hampshire by Gov. Chris Sununu’s administration as part of an economic development initiative, the Democratic mayor said.

Packed Nashua Board of Aldermen meeting to discuss land purchase by major Chinese company on August 12, 2025

“If you have a problem with this, you’re in the wrong place. This was initiated and pursued by Concord. We are kind of just spectators to the whole thing,” Donchess told the crowd.

Nashua’s water utility, Pennichuck Water, is a company owned by the city. Pennichuck CEO John Boisvert said everyone in Nashua would know if there was ever a sale in the works, but there isn’t, he said.

“We are not for sale, and you all would know it if we were,” Boisvert said. 

Alderman Michael O’Brien, a retired city firefighter, called the Nongfu rumors a fire they didn’t start.

“An arson, if you will,” O’Brien said.

O’Brien was one of the city officials involved in the decade-long fight by the city to buy Pennichuck. At the time, Nashua wanted to prevent a foreign company from buying the local utility. Donchess said given the history, no one in the city government would approve any sale.

“The City of Nashua spent a lot of money, a lot of effort, and a long legal struggle to make sure a French company didn’t buy the water company,” Donchess said.

Nongfu was enticed to set up shop in Nashua by state officials, Donchess said. The company was already looking to expand into the United States and had narrowed its choices down to Nashua or a site in Maryland.

The company chose Nashua on the expectation that it would create hundreds of jobs in the city by opening a bottling plant. But rumors swirled for months that the city was selling Pennichuck, or selling water rights, or selling Pennichuck land to Nongfu. All are complete fabrications, Donchess said.

“Politicians are trying to get you upset … We understand that you may have concerns about this. We don’t really control any of this,” Donchess said. “You may be frustrated and angry, but (Nashua officials) are not the people you should be angry with.”

The state government is in control of nearly every aspect of Nongfu’s start-up. Under state law, Pennichuck is required to sell water to any customer, including foreign-owned companies. The Public Utilities Commission sets the price for the water. Additionally, the Public Utilities Commission would ultimately be able to veto the sale of any assets, like Pennichuck’s water rights or land.

Public comment for the meeting was scheduled to take place later in the meeting. Other Aldermen expressed frustration with the Nongfu misinformation coming from outside the city.

But some of the rumors may be coming from closer to home. Alderman Melbourne Moran blamed outside politicians for ginning up fear about the city selling the utility, while at the same time saying people should be afraid of large corporations poisoning the water supply.

“It’s reasonable to assume that a billionaire or a multinational corporation would poison the people of the city. The people are right to be concerned,” Moran said. 

Moran went on to say that the United States would not take the poisoning of Nashua by a Chinese beverage company lightly.

“We would crush them in a war like that,” Moran said.

With a month to go before the criminal trial of Associate Supreme Court Justice Anna Barbara Hantz Marconi, defense attorneys are accusing the state of withholding critical evidence and creating procedural hurdles that could jeopardize her right to a fair trial.

Justice Hantz Marconi is facing multiple felony charges stemming from an alleged attempt to interfere with an investigation into her husband, former Ports Director Geno Marconi. Prosecutors say Hantz Marconi’s alleged misconduct occurred during a meeting with Gov. Chris Sununu last year, in the presence of Sununu’s then-legal counsel, Judge Rudy Ogden.

The trial is currently scheduled to begin September 2 in Merrimack Superior Court. But defense attorneys Richard Guerriero and Jonathan Kotlier filed a motion last week asking the court to delay the proceedings by at least 60 days, citing unresolved legal questions and outstanding discovery disputes.

Chief among their concerns is the state’s continued denial that it possesses records of Sununu’s meetings with other judges—records the defense argues are directly relevant to their case.

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

The defense has previously accused the state of trying to obscure the role Attorney General John Formella played in initiating the investigation, raising concerns of a potential conflict of interest. According to court filings, evidence indicating Formella acted independently in launching the probe was only disclosed recently—too late, the defense says, to fully address its implications before trial.

“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,” the attorneys wrote in a July 21 filing.

In addition to seeking a trial delay, the defense has filed multiple pending motions, including one to dismiss the charges entirely and another to disqualify Formella. There are also eight individual motions to dismiss specific counts, as well as a motion seeking a bill of particulars to clarify the accusations.

“Yet, trial is now one month away,” Guerriero and Kotlier noted. “The defense cannot properly prepare for trial without knowing which charges will be tried and without the bills of particulars.”

They argue that even if the court ruled on all pending motions immediately, the defense would still need time to assess the rulings, consider motions for reconsideration, and potentially seek pretrial review by the New Hampshire Supreme Court.

The case has already drawn in nearly all of the state’s top judicial and executive figures. Subpoenas have been issued for Attorney General Formella, former Gov. Chris Sununu, Judge Ogden, and all five members of the New Hampshire Supreme Court.

Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald has been named as a witness, and Associate Justices Melissa Countway, Patrick Donovan, and James Bassett have also been subpoenaed. Last week, Supreme Court legal counsel Erin Creegan filed a motion seeking to limit what questions can be posed to the justices if they take the stand.

Creegan argues that New Hampshire’s constitution does not allow judges to be called as witnesses unless there is no other way to introduce essential facts or theory.

For example, MacDonald can only testify if he understood that Hantz Marconi was aware in May of last year that a grand jury was investigating her husband, Creegan wrote. The other three justices should not be made to testify at all, Creegan wrote, since they have no pertinent facts to offer to the jury. 

“It is understandable that a party may wish to invoke the prestige of a judicial officer, particularly the highest judicial officers in the state, to aid their case. But that is precisely the abuse of the prestige of the judicial office, and its potential to overbear a jury’s consideration of the facts at issue, that a trial court may guard against,” Creegan wrote.

She specifically argued that MacDonald should only testify if it is necessary to establish whether Hantz Marconi knew her husband was under grand jury investigation in May of last year. The remaining justices, she claimed, have no relevant testimony to offer and should not appear before the jury at all.

Guerriero and Kotlier said Creegan’s motion raises “unprecedented” legal issues that further justify postponing the trial.

Judge Martin Honigberg is scheduled to hear arguments Friday on the motions to dismiss the indictments and disqualify the attorney general. He could rule on the trial date then, or the motion to delay could become one more unresolved issue as the clock ticks toward the Sept. 2 trial date.

Months after a state audit revealed incompetence and gross mismanagement at the New Hampshire Commission for Human Rights (HRC), no-show Executive Director Ahni Malachi is finally out.

Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte has pledged to reform the scandal-plagued agency, which emerged as a symbol of government ineptitude during the Sununu administration. Ayotte recently appointed a new chairman, Ray Pinard, and vice chair, Dr. Stewart Levenson, tasking them with fixing the failing commission.

Malachi could not be reached for comment. Her LinkedIn profile indicates she left her position in May, though NHJournal could find no record of her departure in Executive Council meeting minutes or in publicly available HRC records.

Critics say that lack of transparency is consistent with the agency’s conduct during Malachi’s tenure.

Pinard did not respond to multiple requests for comment on Wednesday, and Levenson referred all questions regarding Malachi to the Governor’s Office. NHJournal did not receive a response from Ayotte’s staff.

Malachi’s LinkedIn also lists her current role as a full-time human rights compliance consultant for “Singnalfire (sic) Consultants.” NHJournal was unable to find contact information for the organization.

Under state law, the Executive Council must formally accept resignations and appointments for positions such as Malachi’s. At its Wednesday meeting, the council accepted the resignation of Commissioner Basra Mohammed, an immigration attorney for New Hampshire Catholic Charities. Mohammed did not respond to a request for comment regarding her departure from the board overseeing the embattled agency.

In February, the Office of the Legislative Budget Assistant released a performance audit revealing that the HRC was deeply mismanaged and essentially nonfunctional. At the time, the commission had a backlog of 237 unresolved cases, some dating back to the Reagan administration.

According to the audit, it took the commission an average of 18 months just to assign a complaint to an investigator, and nearly another year to resolve the case.

Due to those delays, the statute of limitations often expired before a decision was issued, denying complainants the ability to pursue their claims in court.

“Our review of 228 cases closed during the state fiscal year 2023 found the Commission took an average of 840 days (2.3 years) to close a case. We found 62 of 228 cases (27.2 percent) reviewed were closed after the three-year statute of limitations that would have allowed complainants to have their cases heard in Superior Court,” the audit stated.

The report placed blame squarely on the HRC’s leadership.

“We found the Commission did not perform necessary management control responsibilities such as developing a strategic plan; defining objectives; developing performance measures; identifying, analyzing, and responding to operational risks; and resolving prior audit findings,” the audit concluded. “As a result, there was an increased risk the Commission would not achieve its objectives.”

The 92-page report also included anonymous, sharply critical statements from attorneys who interacted with the agency.

“Over the last few years, the investigators in my cases never reached out or talked to my witnesses. In other words, cases were delayed for years and then decided without talking to witnesses,” one attorney said.

“This agency should either be completely overhauled or eliminated. As constituted, it serves no purpose,” said another.

“Because the investigators are not experts in the law, they fail to ask for evidence from the employers that would be required,” added a third.

“I’ve been told in several cases that none of the witnesses I listed were contacted,” said a fourth.

Malachi’s responsibilities as executive director included overseeing the commission’s daily operations, staff management, and budgeting. Before being appointed by then-Gov. Chris Sununu, she worked as a public service manager at WMUR.

She has been on extended sick leave since last year, during which time investigator Katrina Taylor has served as acting executive director. Malachi’s absence drew scrutiny within the agency after it was revealed she took time to assist the City of Concord in hiring “Cash Cow Consultant” James Bird Guess as a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) consultant.

Geno Marconi’s seen a lot of fishing expeditions as New Hampshire’s Ports Director. And now, his defenders say, he’s the subject of a new one — from the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Public Integrity Unit.

Marconi is charged with a slew of felonies and misdemeanors for alleged criminal acts that the Attorney General’s Office has been reluctant to describe in public. It turns out that they may have initially wanted to charge him with something else.

Rockingham Superior Court Judge David Ruoff disclosed this month that he was questioned by state investigators last year about a 20-year-old criminal case involving Marconi. 

Ruoff was recently assigned to preside over the criminal case against Marconi after Judge Andrew Schulman was transferred to Hillsborough Superior Court — South in Nashua. As a result, Ruoff filed a Rule 2.11 notice with the court disclosing his past encounters with Marconi and his wife, suspended Associate Supreme Court Justice Anna Barbara Hantz Marconi. 

Aside from describing the occasional social gathering, one would expect judges, lawyers, and their spouses to attend. Ruoff’s disclosure contains some interesting history. Two decades ago, Ruoff worked at the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office and was part of the team that prosecuted former Harbormaster Roger Tropf, though Ruoff was not one of the case investigators.

Tropf’s alleged theft was initially spotted by Marconi, who was then the acting Ports Director, according to records in Tropf’s later employment appeal. A state audit of the port operations found widespread problems, leading to the ouster of Ports Director Thomas Orfe and later Tropf. 

Tropf went to trial in 2002 on charges of theft for allegedly submitting fake mileage reimbursement forms. Tropf was later acquitted at trial in May 2002, and Orfe took a deal and pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor charges of theft by deception. 

Marconi was suspended in April of last year as the Attorney General’s Office opened its investigation, but no one seemed to know why he was being investigated. Except, maybe Ruoff. Investigators tracked down the judge last spring to discuss the old Trope case, according to the judge’s disclosure.

“More recently, in spring of 2024, I was briefly interviewed by NHDOJ about my involvement in the Tropf/Orf prosecutions. While there were questions about Mr. Marconi’s involvement in the Tropf/Orf prosecutions, the present allegations were not disclosed or discussed. This jurist has no information or knowledge about the pending case, other than what has been generally published in the newspapers,” Ruoff wrote.

The charges the Public Integrity Unit used to finally reel in Marconi last October are not for anything related to Tropf and Orfe. Instead, Marconi’s alleged crime is that he violated New Hampshire’s Driver Privacy Act by providing copies of “confidential records” of one individual known as N.L. to another individual known as B.C.

N.L. is believed to be Neil Levesque, the vice chair of the Pease Development Authority and someone who clashed with Marconi over his management of Rye Harbor for years. B.C. is almost certainly Bradley Cook, the former Chair of the Division of Ports and Harbors Advisory Council, who is also charged with crimes for the alleged criminal mishandling of N.L.’s private records.

But Marconi’s lawyer, Richard Samdperil, writes in a pending motion to dismiss the charges that Marconi did nothing wrong. As the Ports Director, Marconi handled applications for pier use permits. Pier permit applicants are required to submit copies of their car and boat registration with the full application. At the time of the alleged crimes, Levesque was applying for a pier permit, according to Samdperil.

That means it is conceivably very legal for Marconi to have had copies of Levesque’s “confidential” driving records. It would also make sense for Cook, the advisory council chair, to at least be aware of the application. 

And, it now seems likely people in the Attorney General’s Office thought there was potential criminal conduct in the way Marconi handled the 20-year-old case against Tropf and Orfe. Instead, they may now be hoping the whole case isn’t a long walk off a short pier application.

Gov. Kelly Ayotte says she agrees that Magistrate Stephanie Johnson should resign, joining a growing chorus of voices who want the court-appointed official to face the consequences of her recent bail rulings.

The calls for Johnson to step down began on Monday when Republican Executive Councilors Joe Kenney and John Stephen publicly released a letter they sent to state Supreme Court Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald and Administrative Judge Ellen Christo, urging them to immediately remove Johnson from her position.

“The release of this individual, who subsequently committed such a heinous act, represents a profound failure in our system that endangered lives and eroded trust in our judiciary,” Kenney and Stephen wrote. 

On Tuesday, fellow GOP Councilor Janet Stevens (R-District 3) joined the cause.

“Magistrate Stephanie Johnson must resign. Since she was sworn into office in December 2024, she has failed to protect the citizens of NH,” Stevens posted on social media. “In February, she released a man who later stabbed a stranger in Manchester. Five months later, an innocent 25-year-old woman is murdered by her former husband, who had been charged with kidnapping, domestic violence, and sexual assault, and granted bail by Johnson. Enough is enough.”

Gleason, 50, murdered his estranged wife, Sandra Marisol Fuentes Huaracha, 25, last week while she was working at the La Casita Mexican restaurant in Berlin. After gunning her down inside the restaurant, Gleason turned the shotgun on himself. At the time of the murder, Gleason was on bail on charges of kidnapping, domestic violence, sexual assault, and theft against Fuentes Huaracha.

MacDonald has already announced that both Christo and Associate Supreme Court Justice Melissa Countway are reviewing the Gleason case to identify red flags that court officials, such as Johnson, may have missed.

Johnson was appointed in December as one of New Hampshire’s first bail magistrates, a position created in yet another attempt to fix the failed bail reforms passed by a previously GOP-led legislature and signed by Gov. Chris Sununu. Magistrates like Johnson were tasked with hearing bail requests in the absence of a judge when one was unavailable.

Ayotte made fixing bail reform a top priority in her first term, and the changes she got through the legislature include the elimination of the bail magistrate system.

“I agree this magistrate should resign and, in fact, I advocated for eliminating all the magistrates in the stronger bail law that goes into effect in September so we can keep violent offenders and domestic abusers off our streets,” Ayotte told NHJournal. “My heart goes out to Marisol’s loved ones and the entire Berlin community, and I will continue fighting alongside our legislature to protect victims.”

House Republican leaders also called for Johnson’s resignation and highlighted Democratic opposition to some of Ayotte’s reform proposals.

“To be abundantly clear, incidents like these are why House Republicans passed, and Gov. Ayotte signed, commonsense bail reform, which will take full effect on September 21, 2025,” said Deputy House Majority Leader Joe Sweeney (R-Salem).

“We are doing everything we can to ensure that we keep dangerous criminals behind bars until their day in court. Yet Democrats stood in our way at every turn, even pushing a reckless amendment to forbid bail commissioners from reviewing prior convictions. Democrats would rather shield repeat offenders than protect law-abiding Granite Staters.”

In Berlin, the murder-suicide hit the community hard. The issue of Johnson’s handling of the case was first raised by Kenney, who represents the North Country community on the Executive Council.

“People just ask me how could this happen to a vivacious, young 25-year-old who had everything to live for and had in front of her, and it was all taken away because of a court system that basically gives a limited bail amount to this estranged husband,” Kenney said at last week’s council meeting.

On Tuesday, Mayor Robert Cone posted a copy of the Kenney-Stephen letter on his Facebook page with a two comment: “Absolutely agree.”

While removing Johnson from overseeing bail cases would be satisfying, Republicans privately acknowledged it’s also redundant. The new bail law requires all cases to be heard by judges; magistrates will be excluded from the process. Pressing for Johnson to resign, they say, is the right way to promote accountability and signal others in the judicial system that egregious rulings will come with consequences.

“Our citizens deserve better—no more delays, no more tragedies,” Sweeney said Tuesday. “The resignation of Magistrate Johnson is not about politics—it is the only way to restore faith in our justice system.”

Lawyers for Associate Supreme Court Justice Anna Barbara Hantz-Marconi say Attorney General John Formella broke Department of Justice policy by privately questioning former Gov. Chris Sununu, according to a new motion to dismiss the criminal case against the suspended judge.

And because of Formella’s conflicts, the lawyers are requesting that Formella and the Attorney General’s Office be replaced by a special prosecutor in this case.

In a motion filed last week in Merrimack Superior Court, Hantz-Marconi’s lawyers say newly disclosed evidence shows Formella is a conflicted witness whose own bias prejudiced the investigation from the start.

“The discovery shows that Attorney General Formella will be a necessary witness at trial because he was the first person to interview Gov. Sununu and legal counsel (Rudy) Ogden about the Hantz-Marconi meeting, which is at the heart of this case,” lawyers Richard Guerriero and Jonathan Kotlier wrote.

As a result, “Formella made himself a trial witness when he conducted those interviews alone with no investigator as a witness, despite standard practices in his office and ABA guidance to the contrary. Moreover, the discovery shows that Formella’s conflict of interest has resulted in prejudice that is evident throughout the investigation and prosecution of this case.”

The motion also complains to the court that evidence of Formella’s role in instigating the criminal case against Hantz-Marconi, including notes of his conversations with Sununu and Ogden, was not disclosed to the defense until recently, according to the motion.

“Formella failed to take the standard precaution of having an investigator present for the interview, despite the warnings from groups like the American Bar Association, that a ‘prosecutor should avoid the prospect of having to testify personally about the content of a witness interview’ by having a ‘trusted and credible person,’ such as an investigator, conduct the interview or at least witness it,” the lawyers wrote in the motion.

Formella’s private conversations with Sununu and Ogden were not known when Guerriero and Kotlier previously raised Formella’s close relationship with Sununu as grounds to have him and his office removed from the case. At the time, Judge Matin Honigberg denied that motion, in part, by pointing out Formella was not a witness to the case.

“The court understands defendant’s assertion to be that AG Formella or other AAGs (assistant attorneys general) may become conflicted because they could, hypothetically, become witnesses if the governor approached them with information regarding his conversation with the defendant. The court dismisses such a theory as speculative,” Honigberg wrote in his Dec. 18 order denying the motion to disqualify Formella.

While neither Honigberg nor Hantz-Marconi’s lawyers knew about Formella’s private conversations, prosecutors were aware he spoke to Sununu and Ogden, and gathered information about the case, according to the new motion.

“Formella and the prosecutors knew on Dec. 18th that it was not mere speculation. Formella and the prosecutors knew that Formella was a witness because, exactly as the court described in its order, ‘the governor approached them [specifically Formella] with information regarding his conversation with the defendant.’ Formella and the prosecutors knew that was a fact, but they did not reveal that to the defense or the court in their objection to the first defense motion or at the Dec. 2nd hearing,” Guerriero and Kotlier wrote.

“One can imagine that if Formella had recognized the potential of a conflict of interest and if the prosecutors had filed such a motion and revealed Formella’s personal role in the case as the first interviewer of Sununu and Ogden, and the likelihood of Formella being a witness at trial, this court may well have had concerns.”

Asked about the defense’s claims, the Attorney General’s Office released a statement saying, “We will respond to this latest defense motion by filing an objection in court.”

Hantz-Marconi’s June 6 meeting with Sununu is the crux of the criminal charges against her. She’s accused of trying to pressure Sununu and others to intervene in the criminal case against her husband, former New Hampshire Ports Director Geno Marconi. Formella first learned about the meeting during a regular phone call with Sununu, who mentioned it in passing, according to the new motion.

Instead of stopping the conversation, though, Formella started asking Sununu about his chat with Hantz-Marconi, according to his own notes. He later called Ogden for a separate interview session about the June 6 meeting with the judge. During those conversations, both Sununu and Ogden told Formella there was nothing criminal being asked of them, the notes show.

“The manner in which Formella first learned of the meeting shows that neither Sununu, the supposedly improperly influenced government official, nor Ogden, his legal counsel and an experienced attorney, perceived anything illegal or any reason to make a report of any misconduct. Formella is a direct witness to this exculpatory evidence,” Guerriero and Kotlier wrote.

How Hantz-Marconi’s June 6 conversation with Sununu became a matter of criminal charges is still a mystery. When the Public Integrity Unit began its criminal investigation into Hantz-Marconi, there was no written complaint filed with the office, even though Formella’s own policies require such a complaint.

Formella crafted the memorandum founding the Public Integrity Unit at Sununu’s direction in 2021. In that memo, Formella explicitly states that no investigation would start without a written complaint that included the identity of the person making the complaint.

“Yet, despite the explicit policy, there is no written complaint against Justice Hantz-Marconi in the discovery provided by the prosecutors from the Public Integrity Unit. Presumably, after multiple rounds of discovery and with the trial coming up quickly, if a complaint had been filed, the state would have produced it by now. Yet, by their own accounts, Sununu, Ogden, and Duprey did not file written complaints – they did not even perceive any illegality or misconduct on the part of Justice Hantz Marconi. Nor is there evidence that any other person filed a complaint against Justice Hantz Marconi,” Guerriero and Kotlier wrote.

According to the motion, it seems Formella was trying to determine if Hantz-Marconi was badmouthing him during the conversation with Sununu. Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald, another high-profile witness, reportedly told Formella that Hantz-Marconi called him “weak” and “very political” during her talk with Sununu. Both Ogden and Sununu denied that when asked during a subsequent interview with investigators. They even said Hantz-Marconi did not mention Formella at all during the June 6 meeting, according to the motion.

Because of Formella’s now confirmed role in the case and the fact that he can be called as a witness, Guerriero and Kotlier argue that not only should he be dismissed from the case, but his entire office should be removed in favor of an independent prosecutor.

“This is a case where the lawyer who will be a necessary witness at trial is the chief law enforcement officer of the State of New Hampshire, the supervisor of all front-line prosecutors, the author of his office’s policy regarding the initiation of complaints against public officials, the first person to interview the most important witness in the case, and in all likelihood, the only person who knows why this investigation and prosecution moved forward. There is no removing him from any part of this case. His entire office is disqualified because he is disqualified,” Guerriero and Kotlier wrote.

Robynne Alexander was known as a “Real Estate Investor Goddess,” who taught others how to make fortunes investing in property.

But the woman behind the failed $21.5 million bid for the Laconia State School property is now set to plead guilty in a federal fraud case after she allegedly stole millions from her former students, according to the New Hampshire Bureau of Securities Regulation.

“Many individuals put their entire retirement savings into the hands of Alexander, who abused their trust and enticed them with returns that she could not deliver,” said Michael Gallagher, Bureau staff attorney.

After investigations by the Bureau of Securities Regulation and the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, Alexander agreed to pay more than $3 million in restitution to her victims, in addition to the criminal charges filed in federal court. 

According to the Bureau’s consent order with Alexander, she took money from 30 people, many of whom she met through her investing classes. She touted her experience developing large projects like apartment complexes and retail developments without telling her investors that her short history in real estate mostly consisted of flipping houses.

Alexander created several LLCs for various projects and used investor money for some start-up costs, as well as high-interest loans from “nontraditional” lenders for the rest. She never told her investors about the loans, according to the consent order. She also didn’t tell them about using their money for her own personal expenses, fictitious payments to investors she liked, or a month-long vacation to Paris, Barcelona, Valencia, Nassau, Florida, and New Orleans.

Some investors were enticed by too-good-to-be-true 80 percent projected returns on their money. Her projects ran into trouble, and Alexander began paying some investors with money from other investors, the classic hallmarks of a Ponzi scheme.

After Gov. Chris Sununu pushed for a law in 2021 to let him manage the sale of the Laconia State School property, Alexander put herself and one of her companies forward with a $21.5 million bid to turn the 600 acre property into a new village that included housing, retail, entertainment, hiking trails, and more. 

Alexander’s winning bid began getting negative attention as people close to the deal started asking questions about her financing. Her $21.5 million bid was far higher than the other offers the state received.

Sununu, guest hosting for Jack Heath’s radio show, said Friday as news broke that former Executive Councilor Ted Gatsas (R-District 4) gets credit for raising arms about Alexander.

“You know, Gatsas was one of the ones on the council that said, ‘We could have a problem here.’ And, you know, he really understood the financing of some of the things with that organization,” Sununu said.

After at least four deadlines passed for Alexander to close the Laconia deal, Sununu and the councilors moved on.

“And after three or four extensions, we’re like, ‘Okay, enough is enough.’ And we pulled the plug, rightly so. But Ted was one of the ones who was just really smart in terms of what we were potentially walking into. And [he] put up the red flags for us, and really drove the message to get us to pivot, and it was clearly the right thing to do.”

The state is currently working with a new investment group that has an offer to buy the property for $10 million.

The Laconia State School bid came apart just as Alexander’s whole business model imploded. 

“Eventually, the high interest rates from nontraditional lenders, various lawsuits, and the promised returns to investors caught up with [Alexander], and her scheme collapsed,” the consent order states.

Alexander is paying $3 million to victims through the SEC enforcement actions, and another $96,000 to victims through the New Hampshire Bureau investigation. She also agreed to give up any licensing to sell securities anywhere, and not to be head of any company anywhere.

“This settlement shows that people will be held accountable when they mishandle and misuse investor funds for their own personal gain at the expense of hard-working individuals who are simply trying to meet their retirement goals,” Gallagher said.

Geno Marconi was just doing his job as New Hampshire’s Ports Director when he shared copies of an unnamed man’s car and boat registrations with Bradley Cook, then the Chair of the Division of Ports and Harbors Advisory Council.

That’s the claim in a flurry of new court filings in Marconi’s criminal case, pushing to have the charges dismissed on the grounds that no crime was committed. His lawyer, Richard Samdperil, also wants evidence of deleted voicemails tossed out, arguing they were obtained without a warrant.

The indictments against Marconi are at the center of a scandal that’s snared his wife, Associate Supreme Court Justice Anna Barbara Hantz-Marconi, as well as former Gov. Chris Sununu, and state Supreme Court Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald. But the question that’s dogged the cases against Marconi, Hantz-Marconi, and Cook is, what did they do?

According to prosecutors, Marconi shared the confidential motor vehicle records of N.L. with Cook and then deleted at least one voicemail from his cell phone after learning about the investigation. N.L. is believed to be Neil Levesque, the vice chair of the Pease Development Authority and someone who clashed with Marconi over his management of Rye Harbor.

But Marconi argues he never shared private information from N.L.’s motor vehicle records. Instead, N.L. gave Marconi copies of his car registration, a relative’s car registration, and boat registration as part of N.L.’s application for a pier use permit, according to the motions filed in court this month. 

At the time of N.L.’s application, Marconi was Director of Ports and Harbors and, as such, served as vice chair of the Division of Ports and Harbors Advisory Council. In that role, he worked with the council on all day-to-day business, according to the motions.

“Mr. Marconi’s duties include the general and active supervision and direction over the day-to-day business and affairs of the DPH and its employees, subject to the control of the PDA and its Executive Director,” Samdperil wrote. 

Members of the council, like Cook, are supposed to work with Marconi on port operations. There is no indication in the law that council members are barred from seeing records like pier use permits, Samdperil wrote. If the case won’t be dismissed, Samdperil wants the state to prove Marconi knew he was committing a crime given the law authorizing the council to work with him.

“The jury must find that beyond a reasonable doubt that ‘providing records pertaining to N.L. to another individual [Cook]’ was not authorized by [the law],” Samdperil said.

Samdperil also wants the voicemail evidence suppressed, arguing it was taken from Marconi’s private cell phone account that was not listed in the search warrant application. Marconi’s PDA provided cell phone was disconnected in April of last year when he was first placed on leave. But he kept the physical phone and set up a new cell phone account with a new, private cell phone number a few days later, according to court records.

The PDA pressured Marconi to give the phone back as well, since it was legally PDA property, according to court records. Marconi did get a new phone and moved his new cell phone account to the new device, giving the old phone back to the PDA. 

A month later, investigators for the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office obtained a warrant for the old phone, listing his PDA phone number in the warrant application. During the search of the old phone, investigators obtained voicemail records associated with Marconi’s new, private number. Samdperil argues nothing from the new account on the old phone should be allowed.

Assistant Attorney General Joe Fincham responded that the account number does not matter, anything on the phone was fair game.

“Whatever expectation of privacy Defendant may have in the contents associated with his personal phone number, when he placed those contents on the PDA’s physical device, he lost any reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents,” Fincham wrote.

No rulings have yet been made on any of the motions. 

Hantz-Marconi is currently on leave from the Supreme Court and charged with trying to get Sununu to intervene on her husband’s behalf. She’s fighting the charges, and argues she did nothing criminal in talking to Sununu about her husband and the impact the pending investigation had on her work.

Sununu seems to agree, according to a transcript of his interview with investigators. 

“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.”

According to Hantz-Marconi’s pleadings, MacDonald advised her there was no crime in her talking to Sununu before the June, 2023 meeting.

“I think you can do that – You are a constituent and have concerns,” MacDonald reportedly told Hantz-Marconi.

With an associate justice a defendant, and the chief justice a likely witness, the remaining four members of the state Supreme Court preemptively recused themselves from the case last year. 

Prosecutors did not hide evidence by failing to ask New Hampshire Lottery Executive Director Charles McIntyre about calling Concord Casino owner Andy Sanborn a “lying sack of trash.”

Sanborn faces criminal charges for allegedly filing false financial information in order to get COVID relief money. He’s also fighting the state in court over the forced sale of his casino. His lawyers wanted to depose McIntyre, as well as Director of Taxpayer Services Lisa Crowley, claiming the state failed to pursue questions that could clear Sanborn during their separate interviews with investigators.  

Merrimack Superior Court Judge John Kissinger recently ruled that Sanborn’s defense lawyers are free to ask their own questions during witness testimony at trial, but they don’t have the right to get either McInTyre or Crowley to sit for sworn depositions. McIntyre expressed a personal animus toward Sanborn during his interview with investigators, which defense lawyers claim demonstrates a potentially disqualifying bias.

But Kissinger wrote in his order that Sanborn likely already knows if McIntyre does not like him as a person, and prosecutors are not responsible for plumbing the depths of their relationship.

“To the extent, for example, that the defendants seek to explore Mr. McIntyre’s alleged animus toward Mr. Sanborn, the Court finds that whatever animus exists is known to Mr. Sanborn and may be properly addressed in cross-examination,” Kissinger wrote.

Prosecutors have already had their knuckles rapped by Kissinger after he found they violated attorney-client privilege when executing a search warrant last year. 

“The Court finds that the NHAG exhibited gross negligence at several points throughout its execution of the warrant and subsequent taint review of the seized material that rises to the level of prosecutorial misconduct,” Kissinger wrote in January.

Assistant Attorney General David Lovejoy and forensic accountant Don Swanson were both kicked off the case by Kissinger as a result.

McIntyre’s January 2024 interview with members of the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office included numerous anecdotes about Sanborn’s behavior and truthfulness. In one answer, McIntyre told investigators the Lottery Commission had long dealt with Sanborn’s non-compliance when it came to following audit and cash management regulations. For his part, Sanborn blamed the Lottery Commission for holding back his business, McIntyre said.

“I mean, certainly first the cash management, and then the expansion, where he basically lied to us and said: ‘Oh, you’re the last thing holding us up.’ And then I find out he didn’t get approval for his fire sprinkler system yet. It’s like: ‘You lying sack of trash.’ Like (sigh). Yeah, so, correct. It was, it was a constant catching up with him,” McIntyre said in the transcript.

McIntyre painted Sanborn as a difficult person who tried to bully his way through licensing procedures and audits with the Lottery Commission. He was constantly trying to get around the process by essentially calling ‘the manager,’ McIntyre said, including McIntyre’s own cell phone.

“I made the mistake of giving it to him, and I regretted it from that moment until I stopped answering his phone calls,” McIntyre said.

Sanborn even tried to use supposed political allies like House Speaker Sherman Packard (R-Londonderry) and former Gov. Chris Sununu to weigh in on his behalf, to no avail, McIntyre said.

“It was, like: ‘Oh, we’re going to bring the speaker in, you’re going to get yelled at.’ And the Speaker never said anything, he never said ‘You need to do this, you need to do this.’ (Packard) never once did. And Sununu, the same way. I don’t, like I said, I don’t want to waive a privilege, but he never asked me for any — to do anything for them,” McIntyre told the investigators.

Sanborn is a former Republican state senator whose career highlights include a failed bid for the GOP nomination in the First Congressional District in 2018. While a state senator for Bedford, Sanborn was investigated for alleged sexual harassment of a Senate intern in 2013, though he maintains it was a misunderstanding about a crude joke.