01:00 AM EDT on Friday, September 19, 2008

By Randal Edgar

Journal Staff Writer

MAGEAU

SOUTH KINGSTOWN — A Charlestown Town Council member who is accused of assault testified yesterday that he feared for his safety when he rounded a corner in Town Hall on July 14 and saw a camera aimed at his face.

Sixty-nine-year-old James M. Mageau, the acting council president, said he felt nervous and “was leaving the building to go home” when he pushed Clifford L. Vanover’s camera away.

“Get that out of my face,” he says on the video, played back yesterday before District Court Judge William C. Clifton, who is expected to decide on Monday whether Mageau is guilty of a misdemeanor charge of simple assault.

In a two-hour trial yesterday, Clifford heard testimony from Mageau and from Vanover, as well as a Charlestown police sergeant and a reporter who witnessed the incident. Sprinkled among the testimony were three videos — one that Vanover shot on July 14, and two others that show Mageau having words with people after two council meetings in June and July.

Mageau is seen shouting in all three, but only two were used by the town’s Police Department to prosecute its case.

In the July 14 clip, Mageau emerges from a hallway in Town Hall, turns to his left and reacts to Vanover’s camera. No strike is seen, but a sound is heard as the camera suddenly shifts away from Mageau’s face. Vanover is then heard saying, “That’s an assault. That’s an assault.” Mageau, when questioned yesterday about the exchange, testified that he used his right hand to push the camera away.

“I just felt that I had to defend myself and I just pushed the camera right out of my face,” he said. “I didn’t realize that it was Mr. Vanover even holding the camera until afterwards.”

Mageau testified that he was nervous at the meeting because Vanover, affiliated with a political action committee that led a recall campaign against Mageau, and another local cameraman, Daniel R. Davidson, had shown a tendency to interject with their own opinions while taping council meetings. He also said the July 14 meeting presented a dilemma for the council because Davidson was present and so was another local resident, Marilyn Sheldon, who had a restraining order against Davidson. The incident in which Mageau strikes Vanover’s camera took place as several town officials, including the town administrator, the town solicitor and the police chief, were discussing whether the meeting could take place with Davidson present.

The Police Department’s lawyer, Patrick Sullivan, also showed the July 22 tape, in which Mageau is heard arguing with a TV reporter, telling him at one point: “Don’t sit there and question me. Who the hell do you think you are?” He also says during the exchange that he did, in fact, strike Vanover’s camera.

Mageau’s lawyer, Richard K. Corley, used the June 4 clip during a grueling cross-examination of Vanover. The video shows a sequence in which Vanover, who is filming, follows and focuses on Mageau outside Town Hall after a council meeting and argues with him, at one point taking a close shot that seems to focus on Mageau’s mouth.

After showing the clip, Corley asked Vanover if he had followed Mageau. Vanover was silent, prompting Corley to repeat the question several times. Vanover finally said, “It looks that way. It does appear that way.”

Vanover later testified that his camera has a zoom option that allows close shots of people who are dozens of feet away. But he also acknowledged that his camera at one point was within a foot of Mageau’s face on June 22 because Mageau had come toward him.

Mageau testified that his relationship with Vanover goes back to the early 1980s, when Vanover and his wife didn’t like the work he was doing on a charter study committee.

“We’ve always been political adversaries. It hasn’t been a good relationship,” he said.

Mageau sat silent for most of the afternoon and was called to testify only after Clifton denied Corley’s motion that the charge be dropped, because Mageau never touched Vanover, only his camera. Sullivan responded that Corley’s argument was akin to saying that someone who directs a car to hit another driver’s car is not committing an assault.

About 20 people, mostly Charlestown residents and officials, attended the trial. Mageau left the courthouse at about quarter to five, shouting at a Channel 12 news reporter that he would not comment for her story because he was not happy with the station’s coverage.

Moments later, he said he was confident that he would be found innocent.

redgar@projo.com