01:00 AM EDT on Thursday, July 17, 2008

SOUTH KINGSTOWN –– President James M. Mageau, acting president of the Charlestown Town Council, was arraigned in District Court yesterday afternoon on a misdemeanor charge of simple assault after an incident Monday night in which he allegedly hit the video camera held by a resident planning to record that night’s council meeting.

Mageau’s next court date is July 31, said Charlestown police Lt. Jack Shippee.

The charge stems from an altercation involving resident Clifford L. Vanover, who is affiliated with the Charlestown Citizens Alliance political action committee and was planning to film the council meeting.

“Get that out of my face,” Mageau said as he appears to hit the camera closing on him.

(The actual hit is not seen on camera.)

“That’s an assault,” screamed Vanover as Town Sargeant Raymond M. Dussault intervened.

“That’s the second time you stuck that thing on my face,” Mageau later added, referring to another altercation between the two, at a June 4 special council meeting.

Monday’s meeting was ultimately called off for lack of a quorum after Mageau and fellow Councilman Bruce W. Picard had left Town Hall.

(The council has had only four members since council President John O. Craig Jr. resigned in late May.)

The meeting has been rescheduled for Monday.

Portions of Vanover’s video, posted on the alliance Web site and distributed to the media, show Mageau walking past Dussault and Vanover to exit the building when the alleged assault took place.

The video was submitted as evidence.

Town Solicitor Robert E. Craven, who was in an adjacent room at the time of the incident, said he will recuse himself from prosecuting the case for the town since he is a council appointee, (Mageau was one of the three council members who voted for Craven’s appointment.)

At one point Craven represented three council members, including Mageau, as their private attorney, on an appeal of an Open Meetings Law decision rendered by the attorney general’s office.

The town would have to hire a special solicitor, probably a solicitor from a neighboring town, to prosecute the case, said Craven, who said he will present the names of some possible lawyers to the council either at the council’s rescheduled meeting or at a special meeting.

— MARIA ARMENTAL