State police have concluded the Deschutes County District Attorney’s office did not misuse a restricted law enforcement data system when it searched for information on a local defense attorney.

Staff at the District Attorney’s Office and Oregon State Police declined to say why a district attorney’s employee used the police Law Enforcement Data System to search for information on attorney Michael Romano in March. The state police described the query as “justified,” while a deputy district attorney referred to it as a mistake and said prosecutors never suspected defense attorney Michael Romano of any criminal activity.

The Law Enforcement Data System, or LEDS, is operated by the Oregon State Police and contains criminal history, DMV and other records. Under state law, use of the information for anything other than criminal justice purposes is prohibited.

Terry O’Connell, director of the Oregon State Police Law Enforcement Data System, interviewed District Attorney Patrick Flaherty over the telephone this week.

“During a phone conversation (Tuesday) afternoon, the DA explained the reasoning behind the query on Mr. Romano,” O’Connell wrote in an e-mail Wednesday evening. “We believe that the query was justified, and there was no abuse of the system.”

However, O’Connell did not explain why the search was done or what justification Flaherty gave for it. O’Connell directed questions about the circumstances to the District Attorney’s Office.

On Friday, Deputy District Attorney J. Pat Horton declined to go into details about why the District Attorney’s Office looked Romano up in the system, but he called it a mistake.

“There was no suspicion of any kind that Mr. Romano did anything wrong,” Horton said. “It’s just one of those situations where a mistake was made.”

Horton referred questions about why someone in the District Attorney’s Office looked up Romano to Flaherty. The district attorney did not return a call for comment Friday.

No explanation

Romano said Friday that he hasn’t received any information about why the District Attorney’s Office searched his information in the law enforcement database.

“I haven’t received any apology or any call from them explaining why they did a background check,” Romano said.

Romano believes the LEDS search was done to intimidate him, following a heated exchange he had with Deputy District Attorney Eric Marvin earlier this year. After Marvin revoked a plea offer and increased the charges against one of Romano’s clients, Romano approached Marvin in court and told him the reversal was inappropriate, Romano said.

Romano said Marvin swore at him. In a move Romano has called “pretty unusual,” he subpoenaed Marvin to explain the plea offer at a March 8 hearing. That was the same day someone in the District Attorney’s Office searched Romano’s name in LEDS, Romano said.

Romano, a former prosecutor, said the search brings up personal information such as a Social Security number, date of birth and address.

“I’ve been doing this for awhile, and I’m not going to let a DA attempt to intimidate me,” Romano said.

An Oregon State Police auditor wrapped up a separate investigation into the use of LEDS by the Deschutes County District Attorney’s Office earlier this month. In that case, the auditor looked into allegations the office improperly used LEDS to determine who was parking in the District Attorney’s Office lot.

That investigation also failed to turn up evidence the office misused the database.