Suffolk District Attorney Kevin Hayden has agreed to pay a $5,000 civil penalty for violating conflict of interest law by allowing his office to issue an official press statement aimed at discrediting his primary opponent days before the election.

The State Ethics Commission said Thursday that Hayden was aware of, and took no action to prevent, his office staff from releasing a statement that undercut claims made publicly by former City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo, who stated investigators had deemed decades-old sexual assault allegations against him to be unfounded.

“The authority and prestige of a District Attorney’s office and the work time of its staff are valuable public resources to be used for the public good,” Commission Executive Director David A. Wilson said in a statement. “Their use to discredit a political opponent to gain advantage in an election or for any other private purpose is prohibited by the conflict of interest law.”

The two investigations, dating back to when 36-year-old Arroyo was a teenager and which never led to charges, became a focal point of the 2022 Democratic primary for Suffolk DA after their resurfacing by way of a Boston Globe report, and later caused prominent Arroyo backers, including Mayor Michelle Wu and two U.S. senators, Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren, to pull their endorsements.

Arroyo had sued the City of Boston for release of police investigation files, closed in 2005 and 2008, that he claimed would show the allegations were unfounded.

Ninety minutes before the court-ordered deadline for release of the records, Hayden’s office sent out a mass press statement, which contradicted Arroyo’s public claims of innocence and was widely reported, the Ethics Commission said.

The DA statement read, “We have thoroughly reviewed our entire unredacted file regarding the sexual assault allegations against Ricardo Arroyo. Nothing in the file suggests or indicates that the allegations were unfounded. Also, nothing in the file questions the validity of the victim’s statements. The campaign to sabotage the victim’s credibility is shameful.”

While one of Arroyo’s accusers withdrew her prior allegations in a 2022 press conference with the then-city councilor, the other woman had stood by her claims in a subsequent report in the Globe.

The DA’s statement was released to the media despite there being no intention from the office to pursue any charges against Arroyo in connection with the allegations, the Ethics Commission said, while describing the move as politically motivated.

“The statement in question was written and released by me with no participation or coordination with the DA,” Suffolk DA spokesman James Borghesani said in a Thursday statement. “Our office’s communications on this matter were above board, limited and cautious.

“Out of great concern for the alleged victims involved, we responded to voluminous media questions with extreme care and without revealing any case details,” Borghesani added. “However, District Attorney Hayden takes responsibility for his office and he wants no distraction from his vital mission of ensuring justice and public safety for the residents of Suffolk County.”

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Borghesani referred further comment to Hayden’s attorney, Thomas Kiley, who told the Herald, “I’m not answering questions and if I were to answer questions from a reporter, my client, Kevin Hayden, might be fired.”

Hayden had been under fire at the time by virtue of an earlier Globe report that suggested he had acted inappropriately in brooming an investigation into transit police officers that their own department wanted charged.

That scandal was somewhat debunked, however, upon the release of two bombshell federal reports that revealed former U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins had leaked sensitive information to the press that led to the Globe running pre-primary stories that were damaging to Hayden, in an attempt to tip the scales in favor of a fellow progressive ally Arroyo, her preferred candidate to succeed her as DA.

Arroyo denied working with Rollins to tip the election, stating that he was not aware she was using her office to leak non-public information on his behalf, but Rollins chose to step down from her post as U.S. attorney upon the reports’ release.

The ethics complaint against Hayden was filed by Arroyo, who lost his bid for re-election to the City Council last fall and also filed a similar probe against the DA with the state’s Office of Bar Counsel, the Globe reported in February.

“We have always maintained that Kevin Hayden betrayed the public’s trust and illegally used the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office to win his campaign,” Arroyo said in a Thursday statement. “I am grateful that the State Ethics Commission today proved that he used his office to ‘discredit a political opponent in order to gain advantage in an election’ and for holding him accountable for these illegal actions.’”