PROVIDENCE — One of the new members of the panel that picks finalists for state judgeships was charged in 1999 with obstructing the police.

Patty Allison Fairweather, now the top lawyer for the state Department of Environmental Management, was appointed to the Judicial Nominating Commission last week by Governor Carcieri.

In June 1999, Fairweather was accused of lying to the East Greenwich police investigating her daughter’s role in a bomb threat at the former Cole Junior High School.

In August 2000, Fairweather entered an Alford plea to the misdemeanor charge in District Court, and a judge ordered her case filed for one year, retroactive to the start of her trial, making her eligible to have her record expunged as soon as she paid court costs. Since then, that record has apparently been expunged.

Under an Alford plea, “a defendant does not admit the act and asserts his innocence but admits that sufficient evidence exists with which the prosecution could likely convince a judge or jury to find the defendant guilty,” Michael J. Healey, spokesman for the attorney general’s office, said when asked for an explanation by The Journal. “An Alford plea on a misdemeanor filing is not considered a conviction.”

Carcieri’s spokesman, Jeff Neal, said, “Governor Carcieri was aware of Ms. Fairweather’s interactions with the court when he first hired her in 2003” as a lawyer in the governor’s office.

“He recognizes that these events occurred many years ago and since that time Ms. Fairweather has gained admission to the bar and as part of that process she underwent a character and fitness examination by the bar association,” Neal said. “Obviously, the bar association determined she was fit to practice law in the state of Rhode Island.”

Also, Neal said federal authorities granted Fairweather a security clearance when, as a lawyer for the governor’s office, she was working on Emergency Management Agency issues and when she was “heavily involved” in the governor’s opposition to the liquefied natural gas terminals proposed for Providence and Fall River.

“Given these facts, Governor Carcieri believes Ms. Fairweather is qualified to sit as a member of the Judicial Nominating Commission,” Neal said.

Fairweather, who is now 45 and lives in Westerly, did not return a call seeking comment Friday.

Although the record of the obstruction charge appears to have been expunged, The Journal ran several articles about Fairweather’s trial in District Court.

Fairweather was represented by Joseph A. Bevilacqua Jr., a prominent defense lawyer who, in an unrelated matter, was later sentenced to 18 months in federal prison for lying about his role in giving a reporter an undercover FBI videotape that showed a top aide to then-Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr. taking a bribe.

According to Journal articles, Fairweather was accused of giving a false alibi for her then-14-year-old daughter, who was arrested June 7, 1999, and charged with making a bomb threat. The police said several students reported that Fairweather’s daughter had told them she planned to phone in a bomb threat so two friends could get out of school to go skateboarding.

The police said Fairweather repeatedly told them she had been at home with her daughter at 9:15 a.m., when the threat was called in, but that a student later gave information suggesting Fairweather had left for work by that time.

During the trial, Fairweather insisted that when the threat was called in, she was in her bedroom talking on the telephone with Bevilacqua’s wife — a friend and neighbor — and that she was under the impression her daughter was in her room. She denied deliberately misleading the police.

Last week, Carcieri announced he was appointing Fairweather to replace Jametta O. Alston, who left the Judicial Nominating Commission after she became the state’s child advocate. The governor also appointed a member of his campaign finance committee, lawyer Stephen J. Carlotti, to be chairman of the commission, replacing Girard R. Visconti. And he appointed C. June Tow, a former president of the League of Women Voters of Providence, to replace Agnes Lapointe.

Fairweather was deputy executive counsel in the governor’s office from 2003 to 2006. She was a criminal defense trial lawyer in the state public defender’s office from 2001 to 2003. And from 1997 to 1999, she was a law clerk for former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Joseph R. Weisberger. She received a law degree from Boston College Law School in 1997 and graduated magna cum laude from Rhode Island College with a bachelor’s degree in English literature in 1994.

The Judicial Nominating Commission is scheduled to meet at 5 p.m. Wednesday to begin picking semifinalists for the Superior Court vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Stephen J. Fortunato Jr.

efitzpat@projo.com