Three senior aides to a former governor, Eliot Spitzer, and a former state police superintendent violated state ethics laws by plotting against a former Republican majority leader of the Senate, Joseph Bruno, the state’s top ethics body has concluded.

More than a year after the Spitzer administration was hit with allegations that it improperly used the state police to dig up travel records that could prove damaging to the former Senate leader, the State Commission on Public Integrity handed down the first formal charges related to the scandal.

It did not find evidence linking Mr. Spitzer to the scandal.

The commission, seven of whose 13 members were appointed by Mr. Spitzer, accused the former governor’s communications director, chief of staff, and a senior homeland security aide, as well as a former head of the police, of creating records and monitoring Mr. Bruno’s travel “on a real time basis” in an effort to catch him misusing state aircraft privileges.

Its report was a year in the making and was delayed by what the commission described as “numerous improper obstacles” placed in front of it by the Spitzer administration, which turned over key documents to the body only after the commission threatened it with a court order.

Mr. Spitzer’s communications director, Darren Dopp, and the superintendent, Preston Felton, who has since retired, were each fined $10,000, while the other two aides, the chief of staff, Richard Baum, and a police liaison, William Howard, settled by agreeing to the charges but not paying any penalty.

Mr. Dopp, who has accused the ethics panel of making him a scapegoat and has maintained that he had followed proper procedure, is contesting the charges, which may lead to a public hearing before an administrative judge.

“The commission’s investigation was compromised from the beginning and after a year has produced a report that is more concerned with validating the improper conduct of the commission staff than getting at the truth,” Mr. Dopp said in a statement.

The report does not substantially conflict with conclusions drawn more than a year ago by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. His office spent three weeks examining the same issue, and also determined that senior aides to the governor had enlisted the help of the state police superintendent to uncover records showing that Mr. Bruno was using state aircraft to fly to fund-raisers in New York City.

Administration officials turned over the records to the Albany Times-Union under the pretense of a Freedom of Information request, and advised a reporter on how to proceed with writing an article critical of Mr. Bruno. Further investigation showed the lawmaker was not guilty of wrongdoing.

The commission’s findings seem to reinforce Mr. Cuomo’s allegation, bringing to light e-mail messages between the state police and Spitzer aides discussing with great detail Mr. Bruno’s movements in New York City.

Significantly, Mr. Cuomo and the ethics body did not implicate Mr. Spitzer, an outcome that comes as a disappointment for Mr. Bruno and Senate Republicans, who openly suspected that the former governor was concealing his involvement in the plot against the Senate leader.

The scandal, which is known as Troopergate, was a defining moment of Mr. Spitzer’s brief tenure and his turbulent relationship with state lawmakers. It was later overshadowed in March when Mr. Spitzer resigned from office amid a prostitution scandal. Mr. Bruno, who is facing an unrelated federal ethics violation, retired from the Senate this month.

With the primary players gone, the most significant political implication of the report lies with the investigators more than politicians.

For months, largely behind the scenes, Albany County’s district attorney, David Soares, who conducted two criminal investigations of the Spitzer administration, and the executive director of the commission, Herbert Teitelbaum, have been locked in a battle over their handling of the cases.

Mr. Soares, who is running for re-election, has contended that Mr. Teitelbaum interfered with his probe by improperly communicating with Spitzer officials, while the district attorney has come under scrutiny for his office’s own close dealings with the Spitzer administration.

Questions about the ties between investigators and Spitzer aides is under review by the New York State Commission of Investigation.

The commission, which released thousands of pages of testimony and transcripts, included an e-mail exchange dated July 23 from a press aide to Mr. Soares requesting that the Spitzer administration’s press office review a press release announcing that the district attorney was clearing the administration of any criminal wrongdoing.

“DA Soares asked me to run this by you prior to our releasing it,” the e-mail message to Mr. Spitzer’s communications director, Christine Anderson, from Richard Arthur states. “Since we’re getting pounded by the press, we would like to get this out soon. Thanks.”

Ms. Anderson forwarded the message to several senior aides, including Peter Pope, a policy director who was acting as a special counsel, who wrote back to Ms. Anderson, “Would they add re: govs office, ‘but the report shows no evidence of a crime.'”

Mr. Soares did not include that line in his statement.

Republicans said they were vindicated by Mr. Soares’s second, more critical report, which strongly suggested Mr. Spitzer had lied about the role he played.

The district attorney’s report contained what was seen as damning testimony from Mr. Dopp, who said the governor, overcome by a fit of rage, had ordered him to release Mr. Bruno’s travel records to the Albany Times-Union and had personally reviewed the documents beforehand. In prior testimony, Mr. Spitzer said he had minimal involvement in the decision to release the records.

The ethics body’s report doesn’t contradict Mr. Soares but discounts the importance of Mr. Dopp’s testimony. What matters, the commission said, is whether the governor was aware that the state police department was taking extraordinary measures to cooperate with the administration’s effort to tarnish Mr. Bruno.

“The failure to supervise subordinates, without more, does not violate the Public Officers Law,” the report said. “Similarly, the release of information or documents to the media about a political opponent, without knowledge that such information was confidential or improperly compiled or created (here, through the State Police), does not violate the Public Officers Law.”