BRENTWOOD, N.H. — The owners of a seaside shack that sells shellfish, live lobsters, and fluffy chowder are suing officials who oversee the operation of New Hampshire’s ports and harbors, alleging they conspired to undermine the seasonal business.
The allegations raised by Sylvia Cheever and Nathan Hanscom, the father-daughter duo behind Rye Harbor Lobster Pound in Rye, N.H., shed new light on the controversy swirling around Geno J. Marconi, the state’s long-serving port authority director, who was indicted by a grand jury last fall on witness tampering charges.
While prosecutors have thus far revealed fairly little information about the origins of their investigation into Marconi’s conduct and what may have prompted him to retaliate against the witness, the lawsuit appears to provide additional context.
The overall situation dates back at least to the COVID-19 pandemic, when a surge in demand for takeout food made 2020 a banner year for the Rye Harbor Lobster Pound, according to the lawsuit. Marconi tried in 2021 to stop the seasonal shack from selling ready-to-eat prepared foods. He cited concerns about traffic congestion, but the lawsuit claims that was a pretext.
The lawsuit alleges Marconi — whose family owns and operates Geno’s Chowder & Sandwich Shop in Portsmouth, about 6 miles from Rye Harbor — was using his position to hamper competition and penalize those who aren’t in his circle.
“The series of actions taken against Rye Harbor Lobster Pound were driven by Marconi’s desire to harm a competitor to his family business and in retaliation against the Plaintiffs who were not part of Marconi’s network of allied businesses and individuals who worked for or were otherwise connected with the Port Authority,” the complaint says.
Marconi isn’t the only defendant in this lawsuit. Cheever and Hanscom also sued the New Hampshire Port Authority; the Pease Development Authority, a state agency that oversees the port authority; and Paul Brean, executive director of the Pease Development Authority. The lawsuit alleges all the defendants engaged in an anti-competitive civil conspiracy to undermine the lobster shack’s business through procedural roadblocks, extortion, and intimidation.
Public outcry in 2021 prompted then-Governor Christopher T. Sununu to grant a one-year waiver to let the business keep operating as it had been. But that allegedly didn’t stop the defendants from throwing up a series of road blocks in the years that followed.
Marconi and the other defendants allegedly prompted local lobstermen to stop supplying their catch to the shack, removed the free parking that customers had relied upon to pick up their orders, and imposed onerous requirements and costs beyond what similar businesses were required to shoulder, including a “concessions fee” of 10 percent on gross sales, according to the lawsuit.
The defendants did not respond Tuesday to the substance of the lawsuit’s allegations. A spokesperson said the New Hampshire Department of Justice civil law bureau will review the complaint. Additionally, the spokesperson said the public integrity unit “takes seriously any allegations of misconduct by public officials.”
Although their business was allowed to operate for the 2024 season, Cheever and Hanscom said they worry that permission could be revoked at any time based on a supposed violation of rules that haven’t actually been promulgated.
Marconi told the Rye Harbor Lobster Pound it wouldn’t be allowed to open for the 2024 season unless changes were made to bring it into compliance with a rule regarding the placement of outdoor storage containers, including propane tanks, according to the lawsuit. When the business presented a plan to comply, Marconi then cited an additional “unpublished” rule that would require all propane tanks to be removed at the end of the season, further frustrating the business’s efforts, the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit’s allegations are coming to light just as the discovery process heats up in three separate but related criminal cases.
Marconi, 73, is accused of improperly disclosing motor vehicle records to retaliate against a witness. His wife, New Hampshire Supreme Court Justice Anna Barbara Hantz Marconi, 68, is charged with seeking to improperly influence the course of the criminal investigation against her husband. And his ally Bradley J. Cook, 73, is accused of perjury before a grand jury.
During a hearing Tuesday in Rockingham County Superior Court, prosecutor Dan A. Jimenez said the state had furnished more than 20,000 pages of discovery to Marconi’s legal team in late December. A defense attorney, Joseph E. Welsh, said there were closer to 30,000 pages, with more on the way.
Meanwhile, a defense attorney representing Hantz Marconi revealed hundreds of pages of discovery in her case by attaching them to recent court filings. The records include investigatory interview transcripts with Sununu, his attorney, and Stephen M. Duprey, who chairs the Pease Development Authority’s board of directors.
Duprey told a DOJ investigator that this whole situation with the port authority seems to stem from a decision to allow “the lobster lady” to operate in a retail capacity during the pandemic. Now that Marconi and his allies don’t want retail users at Rye Harbor, “they tried to make life as difficult as possible,” Duprey said, according to the transcript.
Duprey told the investigator that he and Neil Levesque, the vice chair of the Pease Development Authority, support the idea that New Hampshire harbors “belong to everybody” in the state, not just “a small club” of people.
“And I think that’s why there’s been not only a lot of resistance, but a lot of the things have been done to make the lobster lady’s life difficult,” he said.
Levesque is the witness or informant Marconi is accused of retaliating against. Marconi allegedly divulged Levesque’s confidential motor vehicle information to Cook, according to court records. Cook is accused of lying to a grand jury by claiming he hadn’t received the materials from Marconi.
Duprey and Levesque did not respond to interview requests.
On April 19, the day after her husband was placed on paid administrative leave, Hantz Marconi contacted Duprey, allegedly to solicit special treatment from him — but Duprey told investigators he didn’t believe she was trying to exert undue influence.
“I think she was very appropriate in not trying to cross the line,” Duprey said, according to the transcript.
Sununu and his attorney similarly expressed doubts about the notion that Hantz Marconi might have broken the law. Sununu said it was “awkward” and “weird,” perhaps even “inappropriate,” that she came to his office to express her views about the investigation, but she didn’t make any particular request while she was there.
“I didn’t get the sense that anything was illegal about the conversation,” Sununu told an investigator.
Richard Guerriero, a defense attorney for Hantz Marconi, cited the interview transcripts in a recent court filing to argue that prosecutors have no sound basis for their case.
“Allowing the State to proceed with this case is unjust,” Guerriero wrote. “The prosecution poses a threat to the First Amendment and to the important doctrine of judicial immunity.”
Prosecutors shot back Tuesday with a filing of their own, attaching additional discovery material that they said undercuts Guerriero’s argument.
The DOJ spokesperson, Michael S. Garrity, noted that a grand jury had reviewed the evidence and determined there was probable cause to indict Hantz Marconi.
“This case will continue to proceed as required by New Hampshire law, and the defendant will be entitled to the same due process as any other defendant — no more, no less,” Garrity said. “We will try this case in court based on all of the evidence collected and not in the media using just a portion of that evidence.”
Steven Porter can be reached at steven.porter@globe.com. Follow him @reporterporter.