JAMESTOWN, R.I. — As his 22.5-foot-long sailboat sliced through Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island Attorney General Peter F. Neronha talked about why he did not run for governor this year.
As he tacked toward the Newport Pell Bridge, he looked back on accomplishments, including requiring an escrow account that kept two safety-net hospitals running and issuing a scathing report on clergy sex abuse.
And as he turned at Gould Island, he responded to critics who said he spent too much time suing the Trump administration, and said he regrets social media comments that led to a clash with a state judge.
During a four-hour trip aboard Ranger, his Ensign-class sailboat, Neronha looked back on 16 years in top prosecutor positions. At age 62, he is term-limited, nearing the end of eight outspoken years as state attorney general, and prior to that he served nearly eight years at US attorney for Rhode Island.
Neronha, who lives in Jamestown, rejected the idea that he’ll be sitting in the boat next summer, waiting for wind to pick up while cursing some decision on Smith Hill, thinking he’d have done it differently.
But he acknowledged his combative nature might not have made him well-suited for the role of governor. For example, he said he has tried to limit his responses to critics on X, but that it’s not his style to retreat to a “safe sandbox” like Bluesky.
“I don’t like to shrink from a fight,” Neronha said. “It’s just how I’m wired. It’s why I don’t think I’d make a very good judge, and it’s probably why I wouldn’t make a very good governor, either.”
Last fall, he prepared two statements — one launching a gubernatorial campaign, the other announcing he’d “step away from politics” after his term. He said people had shared polling that showed him with high favorability ratings and low negatives. He believed he stood a chance of winning.
But Neronha said he concluded, “That’s just not where I want to be over the next decade of my life.” He said he has no regrets about his choice.
“I’ve had a good career. I really enjoyed it,” he said. “Don’t chase something because other people say you should.”
He doesn’t see himself running for public office again. He expects to do more traveling, reading, and sailing, and to “stay engaged” in some way, perhaps with his alma mater, the Boston College Law School.
Neronha said he still believes “Rhode Island needs better, stronger leadership,” and he’s not just talking about his fractious relationship with Governor Daniel J. McKee. “I don’t think Gina Raimondo did us any favors by leaving us in the middle of COVID,” he said of the former governor, who resigned to become US commerce secretary in March 2021.
Neronha said people asked if he’d run for Congress when David N. Cicilline stepped down in 2023, but his wife told him, “You just got reelected — you should finish your term.”
That’s what he will do on Jan. 5. Neronha said his biggest accomplishment was forcing the for-profit owner of Our Lady of Fatima Hospital and Roger Williams Medical Center to place $80 million in escrow to ensure they’d keep operating.
The struggling hospitals ended up being sold to the nonprofit Centurion Foundation after the state’s General Assembly voted for an $18 million state loan guarantee.
But Neronha said the money in escrow helped keep the hospitals open and will give them money to use going forward. “If they were to close, the impact on the state’s health care system would be dramatic,” he said, adding that he backs legislation to protect the state’s health care system from the abuses of private equity.
Neronha said his regrets include a high-profile clash with Superior Court Judge Daniel A. Procaccini in 2023.
Procaccini, who has since retired, was deliberating in a racial assault case when Neronha posted on X about requiring prosecutors to agree to have state cases heard by judges rather than juries. When a commenter asked if the system can be changed, Neronha wrote, “We’re going to try. When some judges never oversee a jury trial it’s not a coincidence.”
Procaccini took offense, concluding that Neronha’s tweets violated five rules of professional conduct and referring him to the state Supreme Court disciplinary board.
On the boat, Neronha said, “I certainly regret that blowup. I should have been more careful in my choice of words.”
So what came of the disciplinary board referral? “All I can say is that I was happy with the outcome,” he said.
During his tenure, the attorney general’s office has filed or joined 68 lawsuits against the Trump administration, including 16 suits filed in Rhode Island. Critics have accused Neronha of being political and putting too much time and effort into that litigation.
Neronha defended those lawsuits, saying, “We’re not suing Trump because we don’t like him, or because he’s a Republican and I’m a Democrat.”
The suits are based on whether Rhode Island would be harmed by Trump administration actions in key areas such as education, public health, and housing, and those suits have already saved the state more than $1 billion, he said.
During a WPRI-Channel 12 debate last month, some attorney general candidates suggested that criminal prosecutions have been neglected during Neronha’s tenure.
Neronha disagreed, noting that soon after taking office his team discovered nearly 1,700 unprosecuted criminal cases, in addition to 1,300 backlogged cases reported at the end of attorney general Peter F. Kilmartin’s tenure. “The notion that the criminal division was in great shape when I got there and it got neglected just doesn’t meet the state of play,” he said.
Some candidates also criticized Neronha for “editorializing” about investigations that did not lead to criminal charges. In 2024, for example, Neronha issued a report that concluded McKee violated procurement rules in “steering” a multimillion-dollar state contract to a politically connected firm, but he filed no criminal charges.
“It’s very difficult in a case like that to spend three years of investigative time with the State Police and not tell the public what you found,” Neronha said. He noted legislators later passed an anti-bid-rigging statute.
McKee maintained he followed procurement laws and accused Neronha of directing a politically motivated probe.
Neronha said such reports can have tremendous value. In March, he released a report on the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence that identified 75 clergy members credibly accused of abusing more than 300 children between 1950 and 2011.
The diocese was not charged with a crime, he noted, but the report chronicled the abuse and made recommendations, including a call to allow previously expired civil claims against institutions such as the Catholic Church. Legislators passed that law in June.
As he steered back toward the Clark Boat Yard in Jamestown, Neronha relied only on the mainsail because his boat has no motor. He grew up in town and has been sailing since he was a teenager. So he enjoys the challenge of relying on the wind to bring Ranger back to its mooring. Sometimes he misses the target, but then he corrects course.
Walking from the dock, Neronha looked back as the sun sunk low over Narragansett Bay. “Now you can see why I can make this decision,” he said.
Edward Fitzpatrick can be reached at edward.fitzpatrick@globe.com. Follow him @FitzProv.