By NANCY WEST, InDepthNH.org

State Supreme Court Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald says he never spoke with Justice Anna Barbara Hantz Marconi about whether she should meet with then-Gov. Chris Sununu about a criminal investigation involving her husband, Geno Marconi, the state director of the Division of Ports and Harbors.

This directly contradicts Hantz Marconi’s position since about the time she was indicted last October.

Her lawyer Richard Guerriero has maintained it was proof of her innocence, that she spoke with MacDonald who told her she had a legal right to speak with Sununu before she did, but was later indicted for doing so.

A transcript of MacDonald’s Aug. 2, 2024, interview by investigators from Attorney General John Formella’s office was made public Tuesday in the state’s second reply to another motion by Hantz Marconi seeking the indictments against her be dismissed.

MacDonald told investigators that Sununu called him twice about the matter, once to tell him Hantz Marconi wanted to meet with him and again after they met to detail what happened.

Asked what he told Sununu in the first call when Sununu said Hantz Marconi was going to meet with him, MacDonald said: “My memory is that’s news to me.  I, I said that’s news to me…I did not know she was going to see the Governor.”

Hantz Marconi was indicted for allegedly trying to get Sununu to influence Formella’s investigation into her husband during a meeting June 6, 2024, and for a phone conversation April 19, 2024, allegedly trying to get special treatment from Steve Duprey, the chairman of the Pease Development Authority, which has oversight of Ports and Harbors.

Investigators asked MacDonald what Sununu told him happened at his meeting with Hantz Marconi.

“So my memory sitting here today is there were really three, three points that I heard and, and retained. The first was (Hantz Marconi) complained about the Attorney General. She complained, I remember, and this is the Governor telling me what she said.

“And she said that he, that the Attorney General was weak and that he was being very political. The second thing that in my memory I’ve retained is that the Governor told me that she said she knew everything that her husband  knew, everything that her husband knew.

“And the third thing was that she told the Governor that she is recused in 40 percent of the (Supreme Court) cases and that there are important cases, and that all of this is creating a burden on her colleagues,” MacDonald said.

Later in the interview, MacDonald said that comment about impacting the court caseload made him angry.

When investigators asked him why, MacDonald said: “Because we’re gonna get the job done, we’re gonna get the job done for the people of New Hampshire.”

Hantz Marconi’s lawyer Richard Guerriero said in a motion filed last October, “Justice Hantz Marconi did meet with Governor Sununu on June 6, 2024. The meeting was entirely lawful and proper.”

“One of the key facts demonstrating that the meeting was lawful and proper is that Justice Hantz Marconi communicated with Chief Justice MacDonald prior to meeting with Governor Sununu.

“Justice Hantz Marconi explained to Chief Justice MacDonald that she was considering requesting a meeting with the Governor. The Chief Justice’s response was, ‘I think you can do that – You are a constituent and have concerns.’ Justice Hantz Marconi understood this comment to confirm her view that she had the right to seek to address the Governor, just as any other citizen would have that right,” Guerriero wrote.

On Monday in Hantz Marconi’s response to the state’s objection on her motion to dismiss, interviews by the attorney general’s investigators with Duprey, Sununu and Sununu’s legal counsel were made public. They all indicated they didn’t believe Hantz Marconi did anything illegal in her conversations with Sununu and Duprey.

The Attorney General’s second reply motion made public Tuesday said since Hantz Marconi was using information obtained in discovery, the process of sharing information in court cases, that the state wanted to add some information for the court because of what Hantz Marconi had withheld.

“(W)hile the State does not believe it to be appropriate to publicize all discovery in this matter, given (Hantz Marconi’s) publicizing of certain materials while withholding others from the Court that would undermine her arguments, the State has attached two illustrative examples,” wrote Assistant Attorneys General Joe Fincham and Dan Jimenez.

One is an email from Hantz Marconi to Sununu’s scheduler where she requested the meeting to discuss “a personal matter involving a member of my immediate family,” the reply stated.

That would undermine Hantz Marconi’s argument that this was a meeting covered by judicial immunity.

“The second attachment is a transcript of an interview with Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald, wherein the Chief Justice denied having any prior knowledge of (Hantz Marconi’s) meeting with Governor Sununu and disputed Defendant’s representations to the Governor regarding the administrative aspects of the Court, which would also undermine her argument that this was a meeting covered by judicial immunity,” Fincham and Jimenez wrote.

A hearing on the matter has been scheduled for Feb. 3 in Merrimack County Superior Court in Concord.

Guerriero’s court filing the day before said, “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 Guerriero.

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.

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.