TUPPER LAKE – Jessica Rice of Tupper Lake was found guilty this week of attempting to cover up abuse of a Sunmount resident.

She was one of five employees arrested on 28 charges for allegedly assaulting a resident of the developmental disabilities center in 2013 and then covering it up.

Rice, 29, was convicted in Franklin County Court of one count of first-degree offering a false instrument for filing, a felony, and one count of offering a false instrument for filing in the second-degree, a misdemeanor. She previously faced 12 charges, including felonies and misdemeanors for tampering with public records and faslifying business records.

According to the state Justice Center for the Protection of People with Special Needs, Rice’s conviction stemmed from an incident on Nov. 23, 2013, when she filed false paperwork with the state Office for People with Developmental Disabilities in an effort to cover up the alleged assault, which involved her live-in boyfriend and a fellow Sunmount employee.

The Justice Center said that on Oct. 5, 2013, Sunmount worker Corey Casciaro assaulted an 18-year-old resident who suffered a head injury, a seizure and a concussion. It said neither Casciaro nor his co-workers, Rice and Scott Norton, sought immediate medical assistance for the victim.

However, Casciaro was acquitted of all charges following a five-day jury trial in August. Norton’s case was dismissed by a Franklin County judge on Sept. 2.

In May, a jury convicted Jeff Defayette of second-degree falsifying a written instrument for filing, a Class A misdemeanor, but acquitted him of a felony charge of first-degree falsifying a written instrument for filing.

The outcomes of earlier trials, either acquittals or convictions, were not admissible in this trial, said Justice Center spokesman William Reynolds.

The Rice trial began Monday, and the verdict arrived on Tuesday.

The last defendant, Suzanne Decheine, 51, of Tupper Lake, is awaiting trial. She is charged with including false information in her reports, including some that went into the victim’s medical records. Decheine, a registered nurse, was also charged with failing to report the suspected abuse to the Justice Center’s Vulnerable Persons Central Register. Her trial begins Monday in Malone.

Rice is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 23 and faces a maximum sentence of one-and-a-third to four years in prison, said the Justice Center in a press release. She was terminated by OPWDD prior to the trial, Reynolds said.