Geno Marconi, the longtime head of New Hampshire’s Division of Ports and Harbors, entered a not guilty plea Wednesday to charges that he obtained and shared confidential records to retaliate against a member of the Pease Development Authority Board.
Marconi waived his arraignment, but did appear in Rockingham County Superior Court to contest the state’s proposed bail order, which requires that he have no contact with any members of the Pease board or staff.
Marconi and his wife, New Hampshire Supreme Court Justice Anna Barbara Hantz Marconi, are at the center of a sprawling legal controversy involving allegations of retaliation, the release of confidential records, and an alleged pressure campaign to end an investigation. Gov. Chris Sununu and Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald could both be called as witnesses in the forthcoming criminal trials, along with several politically-influential members of the Pease Development Authority.
Prosecutors allege that in April, Marconi improperly obtained and disclosed confidential motor vehicle records, and then shared those records with a co-conspirator, Bradley Cook, who served alongside Marconi on a port advisory committee. Marconi got hold of the records in an act of retaliation, according to court paperwork, against someone identified only as “N.L.”
NHPR has confirmed that Neil Levesque, who serves on the Pease Development Authority’s board of directors, which oversees the Division of Ports and Harbors, was the alleged target.
It isn’t clear what records Marconi obtained from a state database, and what he intended to do with them. Prosecutors on Wednesday declined a reporter’s questions about which documents Marconi allegedly obtained.
Marconi is also accused of deleting a voicemail related to the alleged conduct, though it isn’t clear if the message was from Cook or another person.
He declined to comment as he left the courtroom Wednesday.
Judge Andrew Schulman agreed to modify the bail orders following a brief hearing to permit Marconi to have limited contact with members of the board — should they permit that contact — and that Marconi not discuss the facts of the case.
The indictments against Geno Marconi were made public on Oct. 17, the day after his wife, Justice Hantz Marconi, was indicted for alledgeding trying to influence the state’s investigation into her husband, which spanned several months.
Hantz Marconi is accused of attempting to persuade Sununu to curtail or speed up the investigation into her husband during a June meeting in the governor’s office. Lawyers for Hantz Marconi say that at no time did she threaten or plead with Sununu to intervene, and that she previously obtained the approval of MacDonald, the high court’s chief justice, to meet with Sununu.
In April, Hantz Marconi also allegedly contacted Steve Duprey, the chair of the Pease Development Authority, which has oversight over the state’s ports. (Duprey is a member of NHPR’s Board of Directors, but has no influence over the station’s coverage.)
Sununu appointed Hantz Marconi to the state’s highest court in 2017, and also nominated Levesque to serve on the Pease Development Autthority’s board of directors. The PDA oversees a wide range of state properties, including a golf course, an airport and the state’s working harbors.
Cook also waived his arraignment on Wednesday. He’s accused of lying in grand jury testimony about communications with Marconi related to a pier use permit obtained by Levesque, according to court paperwork.
On Tuesday evening, Cook’s resignation letter as the chair of the Port Advisory Council was read aloud at the start of a regularly scheduled meeting at the Division of Ports and Harbors headquarters in Portsmouth. Marconi, who previously also served on the council in his role as ports director, has been on administrative leave since April.
Hantz Marconi was also placed on administrative leave from the Supreme Court in July, and has not been hearing cases. Her law license was also suspended following the announcement of criminal charges, a standard practice.
Lawyers for Hantz Marconi are scheduled for a hearing next week in which they are expected to argue that New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella should have recused himself from the investigation into her because of his unique relationship with Sununu. Formella was previously Sununu’s legal counsel, and now, in his capacity as the state’s top prosecutor, functions as the governor’s lawyer, Hantz Marconi’s legal counsel claims.
Sununu, Hantz Marconi’s lawyers note, is likely to be a central witness in her criminal trial.
For his part, the governor has said little about the sprawling web of indictments, and how much or how little he was aware of the investigations into the Marconis before the charges against them were made public.
