Panel Finds Lawmaker Broke Ethics Rules

The conclusion, released in a statement by the committee late Thursday, confirms in part allegations that contributed to Ms. Berkley’s defeat this year in a bid for a Senate seat. And it serves as an embarrassing coda to her 14-year House career.

House ethics investigators determined that on four instances between 2008 and 2010, Ms. Berkley intervened with officials at the Department of Veterans Affairs and with Medicare and Medicaid officials to inquire about delays in payments for her husband’s Las Vegas-based kidney care practice.

The actions caused “compensation to accrue to the beneficial interest” of Ms. Berkley once the payments took place, which represents a violation of House conflict of interest rules, the statement said.

Ms. Berkley responded in a statement Thursday night that said, in part, that “my actions to save the U.M.C. transplant program were done out of concern for these Nevadans and the committee’s findings put to rest any claims that I acted improperly.”

A special ethics investigative subcommittee — appointed after The New York Times wrote last year about Ms. Berkley’s actions — concluded that there “was no evidence that Representative Berkley acted with the intent to unduly enrich herself,” but it recommended that the findings serve as a notice of “reproval.”

The Ethics Committee did not issue such a formal letter of reproval, and recommended no formal punishment, other than releasing the report.

The Times examined the role Ms. Berkley played in 2008 when she and other members of the Nevada Congressional delegation successfully intervened with Medicare officials to withdraw a plan to close a Las Vegas kidney transplant center at the University Medical Center, where her husband’s practice served as a contract doctor.

Ms. Berkley, the Times investigation also showed, repeatedly intervened on Capitol Hill on behalf of the kidney care industry while her husband, Dr. Larry Lehrner, was chairman of the political action committee of a kidney care trade association.

The Ethics Committee did not find conclusive evidence of a conflict on her actions regarding the transplant center and said over all that it appeared that there was a “lack of malicious intent in violating the rules.”

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