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New Hampshire Supreme Court Associate Justice Anna Barbara Hantz Marconi plans to end the criminal case against her with a negotiated “no contest” plea that keeps her out of prison—and potentially on the court.

On Monday afternoon, Hantz Marconi’s attorney, Richard Guerriero, filed a motion indicating her intent to enter a no-contest plea on Tuesday in Merrimack Superior Court in Concord. According to the plea documents, the state is dropping all original indictments against Hantz Marconi. Instead, she will plead no contest to a new charge: a single Class B misdemeanor count of criminal solicitation (misuse of position).

“Justice Hantz Marconi’s counsel will state at the time of the entry of the no-contest plea that she is not contesting that the state could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she solicited Gov. [Chris] Sununu to seek information regarding the investigation of Geno Marconi,” the plea document states.

Guerriero declined to comment on the planned plea, and the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office also did not respond to inquiries about it.

Hantz Marconi’s no-contest plea will not result in jail time, but she will pay a $1,200 fine under the terms of the deal. The fully negotiated plea does not require her to step down from the Supreme Court, nor does it address her currently suspended law license.

In other words, it is possible the 69-year-old Hantz Marconi could remain on the state’s highest court until her age-mandated retirement on her birthday in February.

Under New Hampshire law, defendants who enter no-contest pleas in criminal cases do not admit guilt. In such cases, the presiding judge generally enters findings of guilt for no-contest defendants, who are considered to have been convicted of the crime. However, people who enter no-contest pleas cannot be held liable for their conduct in any related civil litigation.

Hantz Marconi agreed to have her law license suspended last year when she was first charged. Her fate as a lawyer and as a member of the Supreme Court now moves to the New Hampshire Attorney Discipline Office and the Judicial Conduct Committee, respectively.

Possibly beneficial for Hantz Marconi, the plea stipulates that the state will not consider the charge against her a “serious crime” under the court system’s attorney-discipline rules. That means she will not automatically have her license suspended once the plea becomes official and could theoretically continue practicing law pending the outcome of the ADO and JCC processes.

So-called “serious crimes” under the court system’s rules that earn automatic suspensions include felonies or other crimes involving “interference with the administration of justice, false swearing, misrepresentation, fraud, deceit, bribery, extortion, misappropriation, theft, or an attempt or a conspiracy or solicitation of another to commit a ‘serious crime.’”

In another sign of how significant the deal is for Hantz Marconi—and a setback for the state—prosecutors have agreed not to bring any new charges against her if evidence arises during the process of bringing her husband, Geno Marconi, to trial in Rockingham Superior Court.

Geno Marconi is facing felony charges of falsifying evidence and witness tampering, as well as several misdemeanor charges. He is in far greater legal jeopardy than his wife ever was, according to sources familiar with the case.

Hantz Marconi was set for trial next month on several charges alleging she tried to enlist Sununu, as well as Pease Development Authority Chair Steve Duprey, to intervene in the criminal investigation of her husband. The charges were questioned from the start, as the state provided few public details to show that any crime had actually occurred. Both Duprey and Sununu told investigators that they did not believe Hantz Marconi had broken any laws.

The case became further complicated when Hantz Marconi’s lawyers alleged in court that Attorney General John Formella, nominated for the job by Sununu, was the original investigator in the case, calling into question his office’s independence. (New Hampshire is one of the few states where attorneys general are nominated by the governor.)

Hantz Marconi was pushing to have all original indictments against her dismissed and to have Formella disqualified from the case.

Judge Martin Honigberg has yet to rule on Hantz Marconi’s motions regarding Formella and the indictments. As part of the plea, Formella’s office is effectively conceding to Hantz Marconi’s concerns by dropping all original indictments. The office also filed a document on Friday indicating that Deputy Attorney General James Boffetti will represent the state.

In a previous objection to Hantz Marconi’s motion to disqualify Formella, prosecutors stated that if Formella were biased and could not fairly oversee the prosecution, state law allows Boffetti to take over.

On Monday, Department of Justice spokesman Michael Garrity declined to explain why Boffetti is stepping into the case. “(Formella) has not taken himself off the case,” Garrity said.

After Hantz Marconi’s plea hearing Tuesday afternoon, attention will turn to her husband’s case, now set for trial next year. The former ports director is accused of violating privacy laws by obtaining and sharing private driving records of a man identified as “N.L.” He is also charged with destroying evidence in the investigation by allegedly deleting a voicemail.

It has been widely reported that “N.L.” is PDA Vice Chair Neil Levesque. Geno Marconi’s defense claims the private records in question are copies of Levesque’s car and boat registrations. Around the time of the alleged crime, Levesque was applying for a pier permit, which would have required sending copies of his vehicle registrations to Geno Marconi’s office.

Bradley Cook, a boat captain and former chair of a ports advisory committee, is also charged in the alleged scheme involving Levesque’s private records. Cook’s committee is also involved in the pier permit application process.