A Tiverton man involved in an altercation with a Westport woman at a wind power hearing panel earlier this month has pleaded no contest to a disorderly conduct charge filed by Newport police.

David A. Booth, 45, of Tiverton, was arrested Friday, August 23, eight days after the altercation at a meeting of the Newport Energy and Environment Commission. The meeting was a panel discussion on wind power, with representatives from the Climate Action Rhode Island, the Iron Workers Local 37, and Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM).

About an hour into the meeting, Westport resident Constance Gee, an opponent of wind power projects off the Massachusetts and Rhode Island coasts, got up to speak and brought with her a bag containing turbine blade fragments that washed ashore following the Vineyard Wind accident south of Nantucket last month. She also held a single piece of fiberglass in her right hand, holding it up to the audience.

As she addressed the audience, a man later identified as Booth got up from his chair, grabbed the bag off a table and carried it to the trash, tossing it in the basket from about five feet away.

“This is garbage,” he said.

Though he walked back to his seat, the man got up less than a minute later, walked up to Gee, pulled a piece of paper from her left hand and attempted to take the fiberglass fragment from her.

“Dave,” an audience member said, as a member of the panel got up to escort Booth back to his seat.

Following the meeting, Newport police put a post on social media asking for help in identifying the man. After a tip, Booth was arrested on a disorderly conduct charge on Friday, August 23; a second charge, simple assault or battery, that was later dismissed.

He was arraigned the same day before Second Division District Court Judicial Officer J. Terence Houlihan Jr. and pleaded no contest to the disorderly conduct charge, according to the Rhode Island Criminal Information Database. The case was filed for six months with payment of $96.75 in court costs.