New Hampshire Supreme Court Justice Anna Barbara Hantz Marconi’s legal team is again asking a judge to dismiss her criminal case, this time pointing to newly obtained transcripts that appear to show several key witnesses — including former Gov. Chris Sununu — didn’t believe she requested any favors.
Hantz Marconi is accused of attempting to use her influence with Sununu in an effort to curtail an investigation into her husband, Geno Marconi, the state’s longtime ports director. A grand jury handed down seven charges against Hantz Marconi last year, including two felonies for attempting to commit improper influence and criminal solicitation, related to her conduct during a private meeting in Sununu’s office on June 6, 2024.
In late August, Sununu was interviewed by investigators from the Attorney General’s office about the private meeting. According to a transcript of that interview – released Monday evening as part of a court filing by Hantz Marconi’s legal team – Sununu said that Hantz Marconi discussed the investigation into her husband, and noted that it was placing pressure on the state Supreme Court because she was being forced to recuse herself from a large number of cases involving the Attorney General.
But Sununu did not believe that Hantz Marconi attempted to exert any pressure or seek favorable treatment during their roughly 30-minute meeting.
“No, there was no ask, there was nothing, ‘Governor, I wish you could do this,’ or there was nothing like that,” Sununu told prosecutors, according to a transcript.
He added, “I don’t think there was anything illegal about it, but I’m not a lawyer.”
There was a lawyer in the room during the June 6 meeting: Sununu’s legal counsel, Rudy Ogden. Ogden was also present during Sununu’s interview with prosecutors, and met separately with them again in July. He also shared contemporaneous notes he took during Sununu’s June meeting with Hantz Marconi.
“I think other than, again, there was repeated reference to ‘this needs to end quickly,’ but to be clear there was never a ‘this needs to end quickly and can you please ask DOJ to end this quickly.’ There was never anything like that,” Ogden said during his interview.
In their legal filing, Hantz Marconi’s attorneys say that the transcripts prove the state has no legal case against their client.
“The State cannot allege a crime based on the evidence it has,” said attorney Richard Guerriero. “The case should be dismissed.”
Prosecutors on Tuesday pushed back against that assertion, but shared no new information with reporters.
“I’m not going to comment on the specific motions and selective filings by defense counsel, but we’ll have a reply,” said Dan Jimenez, a senior attorney general with the New Hampshire Department of Justice.
Sununu called meeting ‘quasi-inappropriate’
During his interview with investigators, Sununu said he found stretches of the meeting with Hantz Marconi “awkward” and said that it was “quasi-inappropriate.”
In 2017, Sununu appointed Hantz Marconi to the state Supreme Court, but since then he said has had no regular communications with her, but that they occasionally run into each other at the supermarket.
Immediately following his meeting in June with Hantz Marconi, Sununu told investigators he called New Hampshire Supreme Court Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald. According to the transcript, that call focused on whether Hantz Marconi’s absence from all cases involving the Attorney General’s office was placing a burden on the functioning of the court, as she suggested. MacDonald told Sununu that it was not affecting court operations.
About a week after his meeting with Hantz Marconi, Sununu mentioned the meeting to Attorney General John Formella during a call that focused on another topic. Ogden, Sununu’s legal counsel, also informed Formella about the meeting with Hantz Marconi around the same time, according to the transcripts.
In a separate criminal indictment, Hantz Marconi is also accused of improperly influencing Steve Duprey, who was appointed by Sununu to serve as the board chair for the Pease Development Authority, or PDA.
The PDA oversees the state’s ports, and in April, the board placed Geno Marconi on administrative leave after learning from the Department of Justice that he was under criminal investigation.
Hantz Marconi contacted Duprey in April, but Duprey told investigators during an interview that he also did not believe Hantz Marconi attempted to solicit information or exert any pressure on him.
“I think she was very appropriate in not trying to cross the line,” Duprey told authorities during a June interview.
(Duprey also serves on the NHPR Board of Directors, but has no influence over the station’s news coverage.)
Duprey said that Hantz Marconi stressed how difficult the situation involving Geno would be on her family.
Geno Marconi was indicted in October on allegations that he shared confidential motor vehicle records in an act of retaliation against Neil Levesque, who also serves on the Pease Development Authority’s board of directors.
Lawyers on Tuesday appeared before a Rockingham County Superior Court judge in that matter, and disclosed that prosecutors recently turned over between 20,000 and 30,000 pages of documents accumulated during a monthslong investigation into the ports director.
The parties agreed to return in 60 days, to discuss scheduling a future trial.
Geno Marconi remains on leave from his position, though the PDA recently announced that Marconi had formally retired from state government, an allegation he disputes.
Lawyers for Hantz Marconi are next set to appear in court on Feb. 13 for a scheduling conference in that case. She also remains on administrative leave from the bench.
