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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.

New Hampshire prosecutors are asking for breathing room as they prepare to try one of the most unusual double dockets in state history: the simultaneous criminal cases of former Ports Director Geno Marconi and his wife, Associate Supreme Court Justice Anna Barbara Hantz Marconi.

The two trials are scheduled to begin just one day apart in November—his in Rockingham County Superior Court on Nov. 3, hers in Merrimack County Superior Court on Nov. 4. But Senior Assistant Attorney General Dan Jimenez and Assistant Attorney General Joe Fincham, the Public Integrity Unit prosecutors handling both matters, told Judge David Ruoff this week that the back-to-back schedule is unworkable.

“Simply put, the State’s attorneys cannot try the cases, and the witnesses cannot testify, simultaneously in concurrent prosecutions in the two venues,” the prosecutors wrote in their motion.

They are asking Ruoff to delay Geno Marconi’s trial until after his wife’s case is resolved.

Prosecutors argue that Justice Hantz Marconi’s case should take precedence, noting that she is currently suspended from the New Hampshire Supreme Court and her law license is suspended pending the outcome of the trial.

Her indictment includes allegations that she attempted to improperly influence the investigation into her husband. Witnesses could include some of the most powerful figures in New Hampshire politics and law, including Gov. Chris Sununu and Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald.

By contrast, Geno Marconi—who retired earlier this year while on paid administrative leave—faces felony charges of tampering with evidence and witness intimidation, as well as misdemeanors tied to obstructing government administration and misuse of state motor vehicle records.

His case is serious, prosecutors say, but less urgent to the functioning of state government.

Geno Marconi’s attorney, Richard Samdperil, has signaled his opposition to any delay but has not yet filed a formal response. Samdperil has already indicated he will challenge the admissibility of evidence and argue for dismissal of the charges.

Meanwhile, Justice Hantz Marconi’s defense team is pressing its own motions, including an effort to have Attorney General John Formella disqualified from the case. Her lawyers say Formella could be called as a witness regarding her alleged efforts to intervene in the probe. Merrimack Superior Court Judge Martin Honigberg has yet to rule on those requests.

The dual prosecutions are already burdened with pending motions, evidentiary fights, and questions of judicial conflict. Judge Ruoff, who was assigned Geno Marconi’s case in July, has not yet scheduled hearings on the defense motions there.

And whatever rulings are issued in either case could themselves trigger a cascade of appeals. Either side can ask for reconsideration or appeal to the state Supreme Court, where Hantz Marconi once served and where her former colleagues would be asked to decide.

The scheduling fight highlights the strain on the Attorney General’s Office as it navigates two high-profile prosecutions involving a retired senior state official and a sitting Supreme Court justice.

If prosecutors prevail, the first trial to unfold will be Hantz Marconi’s—an unprecedented moment in New Hampshire history, with a member of the state’s highest court defending against felony charges from the very justice system she once helped oversee.

Judge Ruoff has not yet set a hearing date on the state’s request to postpone Geno Marconi’s 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.