Lobster Roll Racket Lawsuit Against Marconi Flounders

By Damien Fisher, NH Journal

The lawsuit alleging former Ports Director Geno Marconi ran a corrupt fiefdom at Rye Harbor is in trouble, as Hillsborough Superior Court — North Judge William Delker dismissed nine of the 10 counts in the civil complaint.

Rye Harbor Lobster Pound owners Sylvia Cheever and Nathan Hansom filed their lawsuit in January of last year alleging Marconi directed a network of cronies to harass and intimidate them, with the Pease Development Authority’s blessing and assistance.

According to the lawsuit, Marconi’s end goal was to harm Cheever and Hanscom’s business to benefit Geno’s Chowder & Sandwich Shop, the restaurant owned by his sister and located several miles from the harbor.

Cheever and Hanscom first told their tale of Marconi’s alleged status as a harbor crime boss to criminal investigators at the start of the scandal that sullied the career of New Hampshire Supreme Court Associate Justice Anna Barbara Hantz Marconi, Geno Marconi’s wife. However, Marconi was never charged with any crimes based on the alleged lobster roll racket.

In fact, both Marconi and Hantz Marconi were indicted on felonies in prosecutions aggressively pursued by the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office. But when it became apparent that Attorney General John Formella, former Gov. Chris Sununu, and former Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald would be called as witnesses, the couple ended up with sweetheart deals: misdemeanor pleas and no jail time.

Delker’s dismissal of 90 percent of the lawsuit is the second significant blow Cheever and Hanscom have suffered in court. Delker dismissed the original lawsuit last year, but allowed plaintiffs Cheever and Hanscom to file an amended complaint that corrected their initial legal deficits.

That second complaint was filed in January, and after a hearing this summer, Delker has once again dismissed the bulk of the claims, finding the legal grounds lacking. Even assuming Cheever and Hanscom could prove their story to a jury, Delker found the alleged violations short of what’s covered by the law.

For example, on the claim that Marconi and PDA Executive Director Paul Brean entered into a conspiracy to harm Cheever and Hanscom, Delker found there wasn’t any.

“At most, these allegations show that the alleged co-conspirators, including Marconi and Brean, interacted with one another while engaging in similar wrongful conduct,” Delker wrote. “But such actions cannot form the basis for conspiracy liability unless they were carried out pursuant to an agreement to commit [an actionable civil law violation.]”

That means the claims of bad faith in contracts, intentional infliction of emotional trauma, First Amendment violations, and claims of a PDA-wide conspiracy are all dismissed.

The only surviving count is the claim that Cheever and Hanscom suffered physical and psychological harm as a result of Marconi and the PDA’s actions, even if that harm was not directly intended.

“The Court can reasonably infer that it was foreseeable that the defendants’ sustained efforts to obstruct Rye Lobster Pound’s business operations—together with the defendants’ actions to intimidate Cheever and Hanscom personally—would cause Cheever and Hanscom serious emotional harm,” Delker wrote.

According to the second complaint, Cheever suffers from insomnia, depression, weight changes, severe anxiety, and was diagnosed with cancer, which she claims was caused or exacerbated by Marconi, Brean, and the others. Hanscom reportedly suffered from vertigo, lost sleep, and severe hypertension, resulting in two life-threatening strokes.

Delker’s ruling is not a determination of the facts or truth of the accusations, but rather a determination that there is enough legal foundation for Cheever and Hanscom to pursue their lawsuit on that one count.

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.