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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.

With just days to go before his criminal trial was set to begin, Division of Ports and Harbors Director Geno Marconi reached a plea deal with prosecutors that will keep him out of jail — but cost him his state job.

His wife, however, remains on the bench.

Late Thursday afternoon, Marconi filed a notice of intent to plead guilty to a Class A misdemeanor for violating the state’s Driver Privacy Act. His trial was scheduled to start Monday on felony charges of witness tampering and falsifying physical evidence, along with two misdemeanor counts of violating the Driver Privacy Act and obstructing government administration. All remaining charges will be dropped under the agreement.

Under the plea deal, Marconi will serve 30 days in jail, but the sentence is suspended for one year contingent on good behavior. He must also pay a $2,000 fine and — most significantly — resign as ports director.

The Pease Development Authority previously claimed Marconi was already retired. But the 73-year-old disputed that assertion and held onto the post despite being suspended pending trial.

The hearing for the plea and sentencing is scheduled for 10 a.m. Friday morning.

Marconi has a history of controversial and sometimes offensive behavior. Still, he has allies who insist he’s the target of what they call “New Hampshire lawfare.”

“Geno has been harassed by the Attorney General’s Office for doing his job,” state Rep. Jack Flanagan (R-Brookline) told NHJournal after news of the plea deal broke. “He’s followed processes that have been in place for more than 23 years of service to New Hampshire. The AG has manipulated state law versus federal law on sharing driver’s license information — even when it was with the commission he reports to.”

The notice of intent to plead includes a telling line: “Def. shall resign as DPH Director prior to plea.” Legal and political observers who spoke to NHJournal on background say that phrasing was intentional.

“I think [Attorney General John] Formella is still in shock that Bobbi is still on the bench,” one legal insider said.

“Bobbi” is State Supreme Court Justice Barbara Hantz Marconi, Geno Marconi’s wife, whose own misconduct added to the state’s Marconi mess. She, too, faced multiple charges and, like Geno, struck a plea deal resulting in a single misdemeanor conviction.

The situation took a remarkable turn when, despite pleading no contest to abuse of office, Justice Hantz Marconi returned to the state’s highest court just one week later — a move made possible by the lenient terms of her deal with Formella’s office.

As a result, cases before the state’s highest court will be heard by a judge who is also a convicted criminal.

In Geno Marconi’s case, prosecutors allege he improperly accessed the vehicle registration information of Pease Development Authority Vice Chair Neil Levesque and shared it with Bradley Cook, the former chair of a harbor advisory committee.

The state contends Marconi was angered by Levesque, who had raised complaints about Marconi’s management of Rye Harbor. It remains unclear what, if anything, Marconi and Cook intended to do with the information, which Levesque had submitted as part of a pier permit application.

Cook is scheduled to stand trial on related charges early next year.

Legal and political observers are questioning how both Marconis managed to secure what appear to be lenient plea agreements. Many believe the answer lies in Formella’s reluctance to testify.

Marconi’s defense sought to compel Formella to take the stand. But that request was denied last week. However, Rockingham Superior Court Judge David Ruoff ruled that Marconi’s team could place Formella under oath if testimony at trial “opened the door.”

Marconi claims Formella initiated the investigation against him while serving as Gov. Chris Sununu’s legal counsel, and that he continued to pursue it after becoming attorney general.

Before her plea deal, Justice Hantz Marconi’s legal team had also sought to compel Formella’s testimony. Court filings show he was the original and sole investigator searching for evidence that she had attempted to pressure Sununu to intervene in her husband’s case — an allegation Sununu himself denied, according to court records.

The plea agreements mean both Marconis will avoid jail time and emerge with misdemeanor convictions. They also ensure that Formella will not be required to testify — at least for now.

The New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office wants to tell jurors about allegations of “covert ops,” kickbacks, and COVID fraud in Geno Marconi’s upcoming trial.

Only one problem: Those aren’t the charges he’s facing.

The former state ports director is a month away from trial on charges of illegally obtaining the private driving records of Pease Development Authority Vice Chair Neil Levesque and destroying a voicemail connected to the investigation. It’s a case that has seemed curiously thin from the beginning.

But new filings from the Attorney General’s Office made public this week reveal that Marconi was originally under investigation for “improprieties” involving Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act funding. He was also suspected of taking money from a contractor who did work at Rye Harbor.

Marconi was placed on leave last April as the Attorney General’s Office began its investigation into multiple allegations of illegal activity. Even though those allegations did not result in criminal charges, prosecutors now want to introduce them as evidence at trial.

According to Assistant Attorney General Joe Fincham’s motion filed in Rockingham County Superior Court, Marconi was tipped off about the COVID and kickback investigations by witnesses, giving him time to destroy evidence and frustrate the probe.

Cheri Patterson, chief of marine fisheries for the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department, called Marconi after her office received a subpoena for documents in the CARES Act investigation, according to Fincham. After speaking with Marconi, Patterson told investigators they should look at documents beyond those sought through the subpoena.

Similarly, contractor Greg Bauer called Marconi after investigators started asking him questions about any payment agreements he had with Marconi.

“Bauer’s older brother is also friends with the defendant. Bauer had performed various work at the harbor by permission of the defendant and had previously gotten permission from the defendant for the storage of construction items in the past. Bauer has performed work at the harbor for approximately 40 years,” Fincham wrote in his motion.

Marconi allegedly deleted voicemails from Bauer and Patterson, according to Fincham.

Fincham also wants to introduce evidence that Marconi and Levesque were in conflict over then-Rye Harbormaster Leo Axtin. Levesque complained about Axtin’s management, which resulted in an internal investigation. Marconi was upset by the investigation and sought to retaliate against Levesque, according to Fincham.

Marconi allegedly texted Rye Harbormaster Mandy Huff and asked about Levesque’s pier permit.

[Marconi]: “Has Neil gotten his pier use permit yet?”
Huff: “Yes.” “Would you like a copy?” “Revoke?”
[Marconi]: “Yes, please. With a copy of the boat reg and Fish and Game license and his car reg.”
Huff: “OK.”
[Marconi]: “Covert op.”

Marconi emailed the documents to Bradley Cook, then chairman of the Harbor Advisory Committee, with the message: “Captain Cook, as requested. We can discuss later.”

Cook is charged with receiving the documents and is scheduled for trial early next year.

Marconi, for his part, is including Attorney General John Formella on the list of witnesses he intends to call at trial. The Attorney General’s Office is fighting to quash Formella’s subpoena, and Marconi’s legal team has not given a reason for why they want to put Formella on the stand.

Marconi’s wife, Supreme Court Associate Justice Anna Barbara Hantz Marconi, pushed to force Formella to testify at her criminal trial. Hantz Marconi was accused of trying to get Gov. Chris Sununu to stop the investigation into her husband. In her case, the Attorney General’s Office was accused of trying to hide the fact that Formella instigated the investigation into the sitting justice.

A ruling on whether Formella would be forced to testify was pending when the case suddenly resolved with a plea agreement. The fully negotiated deal allowed Hantz Marconi to plead no contest to a misdemeanor, pay a $1,200 fine, and keep her job on the Supreme Court. And now, there is no possibility Formella must take the witness stand — at least not for Hantz Marconi.

Now that Associate Supreme Court Justice Anna Barbara Hantz Marconi’s criminal case is finished, her husband, former Ports Director Geno Marconi, will get his November trial after all.

Rockingham County Superior Court Judge David Ruoff ordered Geno Marconi’s trial back on the court’s November calendar just two business days after granting prosecutors a delay until February.

Geno Marconi was originally scheduled to go to trial Nov. 3 in Rockingham County Superior Court — the same week his wife’s trial was set in Merrimack County Superior Court. That conflict prompted prosecutors with the Public Integrity Unit of the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office to request a schedule change, since they were handling both cases.

Geno Marconi’s attorney, Richard Samdperil, initially objected to moving the trial but dropped that objection during a Friday hearing before Ruoff, allowing the date to be moved to February.

“Yet, one business day later, the defendant in the Hantz-Marconi case filed a notice of intent to plead, and her plea was changed and accepted on today’s date (Tuesday). That ended the prosecution of that case. Given that less than two business days have passed since that scheduling conflict has been resolved, the court is of the opinion that this case can be placed back in its original trial track in November 2025. Juror summonses had already been issued, and the court cleared space on its docket for that trial,” Ruoff wrote in a Tuesday order.

Ruoff then called an emergency telephonic hearing for late Tuesday afternoon so prosecutors Joe Fincham and Dan Jimenez could explain why Geno Marconi’s trial should not return to its original November slot. A transcript of that hearing was not available Tuesday, but the trial is now back on the calendar to begin Nov. 3. Ruoff said there is ample time for prosecutors and Samdperil to prepare.

“The court is aware that both parties lost five days of trial preparation time. However, jury selection is almost a month away. The court will be flexible in adjusting deadlines prior to jury selection,” Ruoff wrote Wednesday.

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.

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.

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.

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.