The Rhode Island Ethics Commission on Tuesday dismissed a complaint against Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch for accepting a $428 plane ticket from the National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA) for a conference in New Orleans last year.

Lynch attended the conference as the president-elect of the National Association of Attorneys General, where he appeared on a panel regarding online child safety and helped lay the groundwork for a landmark agreement to remove child-pornography Web sites from the Internet.

The complaint, filed last month by state Republican Party Chairman Giovanni D. Cicione, accused Lynch of violating the state’s $75 gift cap from an “interested person” — a business with a financial stake in a decision that the attorney general participates in — because Lynch has the authority to intervene in the state regulation of Cox Communications, a member of the NCTA.

But the Ethics Commission, in a 4-to-0 vote, found that the rule did not apply because the NCTA is not an “interested person” under ethics law, in that it has no official business in Rhode Island, let alone any that intersects with the attorney general’s official duties. The vote, in executive session, endorsed a recommendation by commission prosecutor Esme DeVault, as laid out in a 12-page report.

Of the NCTA’s 261 members, DeVault found, 23 are registered to do business in Rhode Island, and just 4 –– Cox, Comcast, Qwest Communications and Nextel –– are subject to public-utilities regulation in which the attorney general can intervene on behalf of consumers. The NCTA itself, however, while lobbying in Washington, does not lobby or do business in Rhode Island, the report said.

The decision means that the Ethics Commission did not find sufficient facts to constitute a violation, or to justify a full-scale investigation.

“Is this a loophole? I don’t know,” said the commission’s vice chairman, Ross Cheit. “It raises questions about the rules governing national trade associations that we should look at.”

Lynch issued a statement praising the commission for finding that he had acted in his official capacity when he went to New Orleans.

“I am proud of my efforts to protect Rhode Island’s children, and I will continue to work tirelessly to keep them safe from online and other predators,” he said.

Lynch dismissed the GOP complaint as “pure political maneuvering in advance of the 2010 election,” when he plans to run for governor.

The Ethics Commission complaint followed a previous GOP complaint to the state Board of Elections last summer regarding Lynch’s out-of-state travels and how he accounts for them on his campaign-finance reports. The election board opted to allow Lynch to redo his reports to account for $9,000 in unexplained expenditures that had been labeled simply “petty cash.”

“Sometimes political maneuvering can actually be perceived as being ‘good government,’ at least in the clarity of hindsight,” said Lynch. “This frivolous tactic, however, never had even the thinnest veneer of merit. What is discouraging is that political candidates and parties continue to use the Ethics Commission, which is a valued institution, as a tool to grind their political axes.”

Lynch’s brother, state Democratic Party Chairman Bill Lynch, issued his own statement, accusing the Republican Party of “abusing the process through frivolous ethics complaints.”

Cicione said he wasn’t surprised by the ruling, but heartened by the commission’s willingness to examine the current rules as they apply to national trade groups.

“At the end of the day, it’s not a huge issue in regards to Lynch, but it is in terms of the higher standard that we should hold our public officials to,” said Cicione. “Of course it’s politics, but it’s good politics — holding a public official to a higher standard.”

mstanton@projo.com