PROVIDENCE — The state Ethics Commission yesterday threw out a complaint accusing a Johnston state representative of handing her mother-in-law a $1,500 legislative grant — on camera.

The complaint said Rep. Deborah A. Fellela, D-Johnston, handed the grant to her mother-in-law in person. Fellela said it didn’t happen, and that a picture published in a local newspaper supposedly capturing the moment really showed her handing the check to the head of the tenants’ association at the Aime J. Forand Complex, a housing complex for the elderly, not her mother-in-law.

The newspaper, The Johnston Sunrise, later reported that a months-old picture it had published showed the check going to Mary Grant, the head of the tenants’ association. It had no picture of a check going to Eva Fellela, the newspaper said.

The notarized complaint was filed with the commission in March by Deborah Spauer, who couldn’t be reached yesterday afternoon. In the complaint, Spauer said Fellela “advocated for and gave her mother-in-law Eva Fellela, a $1,500 legislative grant, as reported in the Johnston Sunrise.”

Fellela said her mother-in-law, Eva Fellela, does live at the Forand Elderly Housing Complex, but that she is only one of 104 residents there and has nothing to do with the grant or deciding how to spend it. Legislative grants to the tenant group, she said, began a dozen years before she was elected to the General Assembly in 2006.

The legislative leaders in both houses of the Assembly hand out grants, totaling $2.3 million last year, to local causes recommended by legislators. Most are for a few thousand dollars.

Acting in closed session, the Ethics Commission decided that the complaint didn’t allege facts that would amount to a knowing and willful violation of the state ethics code. That meant the commission didn’t think it warranted further investigation.

Fellela, meanwhile, charged that the complaint was brought to give a political rival an advantage. She asked the commission to prosecute Spauer under a provision of state law, known as the Roney Amendment after its sponsor, former State Sen. John Roney, which allows prosecution of persons filing “false or frivolous” ethics complaints.

blandis@projo.com