JCC Confirms Ongoing Probe Into Retired Supreme Court Justice Hantz Marconi

By Damien Fisher, NH Journal

Retired Associate Supreme Court Justice Anna Barbara Hantz Marconi may be off the clock, but she’s not out of the woods, as the New Hampshire Judicial Conduct Committee (JCC) said Thursday she remains under investigation.

Hantz Marconi officially retired from the Supreme Court last week when she celebrated her 70th birthday, but that retirement does not stop the investigation that began in October, the JCC said in a statement.

“Notwithstanding her retirement, the JCC’s investigation remains ongoing and is not affected by Justice Hantz Marconi’s retirement,” the statement reads.

Hantz Marconi entered into a plea agreement Oct. 7 resolving the criminal case against her for allegedly interfering in the investigation into her husband, former Ports Director Geno Marconi. Under the terms of the plea deal, Hantz Marconi pleaded no contest to a Class B misdemeanor, paid a $1,200 fine and then returned to work on the court.

Weeks after Hantz Marconi’s deal, Geno Marconi reached his own agreement to plead guilty to a Class A misdemeanor for violating the state’s Driver Privacy Act. He paid a $2,000 fine and was able to retire.

The JCC investigates complaints of judicial misconduct and can issue disciplinary letters or suspend judges if deemed appropriate. It is not clear what the JCC will do if it finds Hantz Marconi violated the judicial code of conduct.

Hantz Marconi maintains she did nothing wrong when she met with Gov. Chris Sununu in the summer of 2024 to discuss how her husband’s issues were affecting her ability to serve as a judge. At the time, Geno Marconi was on paid leave from his job pending the outcome of an investigation.

Both Sununu and a witness to the conversation, Rudolf Ogden, told investigators last year they did not believe Hantz Marconi made any improper requests. Neither did Steve Duprey, chairman of the Pease Development Authority, which oversees Geno Marconi. Hantz Marconi was originally charged with allegedly trying to get Duprey to intervene on her husband’s behalf, but those charges were dropped as part of the deal.

Hantz Marconi’s plea deal came together as Attorney General John Formella was fighting to stay off the witness stand in the pending trial. Formella, it turned out, initiated the investigation into the judge on his own and acted as the sole investigator before handing it off to the Public Integrity Unit. Evidence in the case revealed Formella questioned witnesses about whether Hantz Marconi called him “weak” during her conversation with Sununu.

Geno Marconi was charged with illegally obtaining vehicle registration information on Neil Levesque, another PDA board member. Marconi was allegedly upset that Levesque brought complaints about his management of Rye Harbor. Levesque accused Marconi of operating a vast criminal enterprise at Rye Harbor, though there have been no charges connected to those allegations.

This story was originally published by the NH Journal, an online news publication dedicated to providing fair, unbiased reporting on, and analysis of, political news of interest to New Hampshire. For more stories from the NH Journal, visit NHJournal.com.