CONCORD — A half-dozen lawyers squared off against a self-proclaimed “corruption fighter” who wants a judge to negate the sale of the historic Balsams Hotel and Resort in Dixville Notch so it can be reopened immediately.

Senior Assistant Attorney General Anthony I. Blenkinsop, whose office approved the $2.3 million sale to local developers Dan Hebert and Daniel Dagasse Jr., argued that the case should be thrown out because plaintiff Andy Martin has no standing to sue.

He explained to Merrimack County Judge Richard McNamara that The Balsams was an unrestricted asset of the Tillotson Corp., which was an asset of the Neil Tillotson Trust. As such, he said, the trustees had the right to sell it, a decision they made because of financial pressures. McNamara took the case under advisement.

Martin, who says he is a resident of Manchester, filed the lawsuit listing his address as the National Litigation Center in New York City. He uses a post office address in Manchester for his mailing address. When asked what his address was after Monday’s hearing, he refused to divulge it.

Martin ran for the Republican nomination for President this year; his appearance at one New Hampshire forum was canceled when past anti-Semitic comments were brought to light.

He has also sued Hawaii over access to President Obama’s birth records and more recently claimed that Obama’s father is not his biological father.

Martin, who is not an attorney, filed the Balsams lawsuit on behalf of the Neil Tillotson Trust beneficiaries, which he said are residents living within a 25-mile radius of Dixville Notch, and include 300 workers fired when the hotel closed.

In court documents, he claimed the hotel was unnecessarily closed, that the buyers had no visible plan to reopen it and may have planned to destroy the property and recreate it as a gambling operation.

Lawyers for the defendants including the owners, Lawrence J. Spellman of North Country Auctions, who oversaw an auction of many of the hotel’s furnishings earlier this year, the Coos County Planning Board, the Colebrook Planning Board, the Tillotson Corp. and the Neil Tillotson Trust. All asked the judge to dismiss the lawsuit.

Attorney Christopher Cole, representing Hebert and Dagasse, said his clients need to meet a mid-December deadline to get financing through private equity and public tax credits. They have said they expect renovations will cost up to $20 million.

The attorneys also want the judge to order Martin to pay their clients’ legal fees and costs. Attorney Philip R. Waystack, who represented the Coos County Planning Board, called the lawsuit frivolous and told the judge Coos County taxpayers should not have to pay for legal costs incurred in responding to the lawsuit.

They say the only connection Martin had to the resort, as he says in his petition, was in 2011 during his statewide march against the Northern Pass project, when he dined at The Balsams and was “extremely impressed with the first class nature of the entire operation.”

pgrossmith@unionleader.com