CARLISLE — Gov. Tom Wolf’s nominee for Pennsylvania State Police commissioner will not be charged for removing signs near his suburban Harrisburg home that protested his decision to wear the trooper uniform, a county prosecutor said Thursday.

Cumberland County District Attorney David Freed said Col. Marcus Brown had no intent to commit theft but only meant to keep the road signs out of view of his wife and children.

Also, Freed said, the signs planted in a public right of way by a former state police trooper were effectively abandoned property and in violation of a town ordinance.

In any case, the retired trooper, Tony DeLuca, got what he wanted because he was more interested in testing Brown’s integrity, the prosecutor said.

“Simply put, he set the bait and Brown took it, hook line and sinker,” Freed said.

Brown is acting state police commissioner and Wolf’s nominee for the post permanently.

Brown should have known better than to take the signs, Freed said, and DeLuca — who claimed his free speech rights were violated by Brown’s removing them — should have known better than report a situation he created as a crime.

Freed’s decision wraps up a nearly two-month investigation into the signs’ removal that spurred calls by the troopers’ union and leaders of the Senate’s Republican majority for Wolf to withdraw Brown’s nomination. Wolf refused, and reiterated this week he continues to stand by Brown, saying the former Maryland state police superintendent is qualified for the job.

Wolf, a Democrat, took office in January and tapped Brown to lead the Pennsylvania State Police, one of the nation’s largest law enforcement agencies with about 6,000 personnel.

Brown, 50, has apologized for removing the signs, saying he made an error in judgment. But he also said he felt his family was being watched and that their privacy had been invaded.