Judge Weighs Dismissing Hantz Marconi Charges

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.