01:00 AM EST on Tuesday, December 19, 2006

By Maria Armental

Journal Staff Writer

CHARLESTOWN — The state attorney general’s office is reviewing a complaint filed by Town Councilman James M. Mageau against 17 people for allegedly launching a campaign to discredit him.

Attorney general’s spokesman Michael J. Healey confirmed yesterday that the office is examining the complaint to see if it has merit and warrants an official review.

Mageau submitted the complaint against what he called an “eco-terrorist group” on Nov. 29 asking for the state police to investigate whether a threat made to fellow Councilman John O. Craig Jr. amounts to a threat against him.

“There can be no doubt that the threats against Mr. Craig and me are the direct result of the hate campaign that was orchestrated against me by Ms. Harriet Allen, Ms. Kate Waterman, Ms. Ruth Platner, Ms. Faith LaBossiere and Mr. Roe LaBossiere,” Mageau wrote.

“Their involvement in that campaign may make them accessories to a felonious threat to an elected official,” Mageau said, referring to a threat made against Craig shortly after the election. Moreover, he said, “these same individuals are part of a conspiracy to destroy my reputation and credibility.”

Craig said he received numerous calls and messages between Nov. 8 and Nov. 20 urging him not to support Mageau and at least one call in which the caller told him they would make his and his family’s lives difficult if he supported Mageau.

Craig, who had originally said he would support Mageau’s bid to become council president, later voted for Waterman instead.

Mageau also cited police complaints filed against him by Waterman and Allen as examples of the ongoing smear campaign against him. He included as supporting documents a newspaper article, copies of complaints against him from the Charlestown Police Department, a letter written by Faith and Roe LaBossiere to Councilman Bruce Picard asking him to not support Mageau and a letter from Patricia Lily Sprague to Town Administrator Richard J. Sartor — and a related memorandum from Sartor to Town Solicitor Peter Ruggiero — in which Sprague complains of an apparent lack of enforcement on a subdivision proposal. Mageau highlighted a paragraph in which Sprague referred to how built-up frustration would have “spilled over” if it weren’t for the Police Department’s help.

Mageau asked for the state police rather than the local police to investigate the complaint because some of those named on the complaint are town officials, including Waterman and Allen, who currently serve as council president and vice president, respectively.

The complaint also names other town residents and members of various boards and commissions as well as outgoing state Rep. Matthew J. McHugh, who had expressed interest in serving as acting town administrator in Charlestown at a nominal $1 a day fee while the Town Council found a permanent replacement for Sartor, who submitted his resignation on Nov. 8. His resignation becomes effective Dec. 28.

“There can be no doubt that the threats against Mr. Craig, his family and me came from someone associated with this eco-terrorist group,” Mageau wrote.

Allen said most of those listed on Mageau’s complaint are named in a lawsuit filed by a developer seeking to overturn the town’s zoning ordinances.

“The rest of the individuals on ‘the list’ read like a ‘who’s who’ of dedicated, thoughtful public servants, who had served in various positions as volunteers, mostly on the Planning, Wastewater Management or Conservation Commissions,” she wrote in a Dec. 14 response to Mageau’s complaint.