The Oregon State Bar has finished investigating conduct complaints against former Deschutes County District Attorney Patrick Flaherty and one of his deputies, ruling that the judge’s order they were alleged to have violated was itself invalid.

The bar’s Professional Responsibility Board met late last month to consider allegations filed against Flaherty and former deputy DA Brigid Turner, and announced last week it had found no violations of the state’s ethics rules for the lawyers.

One of the complaints was filed by convicted rapist Thomas Bray, and the other was filed anonymously.

“There is no merit to this Bar Complaint,” wrote Theodore Reuter, a lawyer for the bar. “Open noncompliance with an invalid court order is expressly allowed under (the Rules of Professional Conduct). The facts of this matter provide a textbook reason that rule exists: The order at issue not only went beyond the court’s authority, but non compliance would have been unlawful and would have invaded another person’s rights.”

The judge’s order Reuter referred to was issued by Judge Stephen Tiktin during Bray’s 2012 rape case. Tiktin ordered the district attorney’s office to serve a search warrant on Google on behalf of the defense.

Bray’s criminal case is a separate matter from the sweeping ethics complaint he filed last year against Flaherty and Turner.

The Oregon Supreme Court last month sided with the state Court of Appeals and vacated Bray’s rape conviction, opening the door for a possible retrial.

Lawyers in Deschutes County are now awaiting a forensic analysis of the laptop of the victim in Bray’s case. But first, lawyers from the prosecution and defense and a judge need to settle on an analyst and agree on what the search will involve.

Bray, 44, was a licensed anesthesiologist who taught part time at Central Oregon Community College. In 2012, he was tried and convicted of raping a woman he met on a first date who alleged he tortured and raped her in his downtown apartment over five hours. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison and a fine of $122,000, and was stripped of his medical license. He’s currently an inmate at Two Rivers Correctional Institution in Umatilla, and as of Tuesday, was awaiting transfer to the Deschutes County jail.

Turner now works for personal injury-focused firm Dwyer Williams Cherkoss. Friday was her last day as a deputy district attorney in Deschutes County.

She defended her conduct in a statement to The Bulletin.

“My actions throughout the course of the Bray case were guided by my legal duty to uphold the constitutional rights of the accused as well as the constitutional rights granted to crime victims by the voters and set forth in … the Oregon Constitution,” she wrote. “When crime victim rights are not defended and upheld, we see a chilling effect on the reporting of sex crimes and other person crimes.”

Flaherty served as DA from 2011 to 2014, when he was defeated in an election by John Hummel. Flaherty is now a defense attorney in private practice in Bend. He didn’t return phone messages left this week.

— Reporter: 541-383-0325, gandrews@bendbulletin.com