Read full response filed Monday by Justice Anna Barbara Hantz Marconi’s lawyer and transcripts of attorney general investigators questioning former Gov. Chris Sununu, his former legal counsel Rudy Ogden and Steve Duprey, chairman of the Pease Development Authority in the following:
https://indepthnh.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/1.10.25_response-part-1.pdf
https://indepthnh.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/1.10.25_response-part-2.pdf

Also read InDepthNH.org’s past coverage of this case here: https://indepthnh.org/?s=Hantz+Marconi

By NANCY WEST, InDepthNH.org

Supreme Court Justice Anna Barbara Hantz Marconi’s lawyer says the attorney general’s investigation shows neither Gov. Chris Sununu nor Steve Duprey believed she was asking for favors during the separate conversations with them that led to her being indicted.

Hantz Marconi’s response to the state’s objection to her motion to dismiss the indictments against her contain explosive interviews that attorney general’s investigators conducted with former Gov. Chris Sununu, the main witness in the case, the governor’s former legal counsel Rudy Ogden and Steve Duprey, the chairman of the Pease Development Authority.

Sununu and Ogden told the investigators that Hantz Marconi asked nothing of Sununu during a June 6, 2024, meeting after her husband Geno Marconi was placed on paid leave as director of the Division of Ports and Harbors.  

The PDA has oversight over the division and Geno Marconi was put on leave April 18, 2024, during a PDA meeting, two days after Sununu and members of the PDA board, including Duprey who attended by phone, met with Attorney General John Formella who told them that Geno Marconi was under investigation.

That’s according to statements by Duprey to investigators that are included in Hantz Marconi’s response, which was made public Monday.

Geno Marconi, 73, was indicted for allegedly falsifying physical evidence by deleting a voicemail/and or voicemails from a phone on April 22, 2024. He was also indicted for allegedly retaliating against PDA Board Vice Chairman Neil Levesque by providing confidential motor vehicle records pertaining to Levesque to Bradley Cook, in violation of the Driver Privacy Act.

Cook, who had spoken out publicly in favor of Geno Marconi, was later indicted for allegedly lying to the grand jury investigating Geno Marconi.

Also new in the response made public Monday were statements Duprey made to investigators that Neil Levesque’s complaints were mentioned to him during the call from Hantz Marconi.

Levesque is the vice chairman of the PDA and executive director of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College.

 “The newly produced discovery confirms that, regarding the June 6th meeting at the heart of this case, Governor Sununu said Justice Hantz Marconi did not ask him to interfere in any investigation. He said she did not ‘even imply’ or ‘insinuate’ such a request.

“(Sununu) said, ‘I didn’t think there was anything illegal about it,’” according to the response filed in Merrimack County Superior Court by Richard Guerriero, Hantz Marconi’s attorney.

“Likewise, the Governor’s legal counsel, who was present for the meeting, said that Hantz Marconi did not ask the Governor to interfere in any investigation, ‘[i]t was never anything like that.’ And, Steven Duprey from the Pease Development Authority, said of the phone call to him, ‘I think she was very appropriate in not trying to cross the line’ and that ‘she did not ask me to tell her any information.’”

“In short, none of the indictments state a crime,” Guerriero wrote. “The State has now produced discovery which shows it has nothing to add to what is already in the indictments. The State has not said it has some undisclosed evidence which will show that there is other conduct, not constitutionally protected, which would support a claim of criminal conduct. The State cannot allege a crime based on the evidence it has,” Guerriero wrote.

Hantz Marconi was indicted for attempting to commit improper influence by meeting with Sununu June 6, 2024, and telling him the investigation into her husband was “the result of personal, petty and or political biases, that there was no merit to allegations against or subsequent investigation into Geno Marconi.” The indictment also alleged she told Sununu the investigation needed to wrap up quickly because she was recused from hearing important cases at the state Supreme Court.

Sununu told investigators: “No, there was no ask, there was nothing Governor, I wish you could do this, or there was nothing like that. There’s no, there’s no request of me or anything like that, and – and there was no, yeah, no. It was more just expressing (Hantz Marconi’s) frustration with the process, with, you know, what – what she was dealing with I should say, not the process but what, you know, what she was dealing with. But there was no ask, or expression that I should be doing anything.”

“The case should be dismissed,” Guerriero wrote. “The state’s objection fails to address the central point of the defense motion that the indictments on their face do not charge any crimes.”

An April 19, 2024, phone call to Duprey caused Hantz Marconi to be indicted for allegedly soliciting him to secure a governmental privilege regarding her husband’s employment and the attorney general’s investigation.

Duprey told investigators that Hantz Marconi said on the call to him that “the scuttlebutt around the harbor is that this has to do with fuel and ice and that Neil Levesque, vice chairman of PDA, is the person who has been stirring this pot” and mentioned a letter Levesque had written complaining about “practices around here.”

The state’s objection was to Hantz Marconi’s motion to dismiss on the grounds of the First Amendment, the constitutional Right of Redress, and judicial immunity.

Guerriero wrote that it was weeks after the defense filed its motion, the state produced discovery confirming that the state has no other basis for its accusations of criminal conduct beyond what is stated in the indictments.

According to the NH Judicial Branch, discovery is the formal process by which the parties to a case in court exchange information about the case.