Providence woman charged with neglect of vulnerable adult

Published on Friday, September 12, 2025

An indictment, information, or complaint is merely an allegation. A defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

Attorney General Peter F. Neronha announced that a Providence woman has been charged in Providence County Superior Court with willfully neglecting an adult victim with severe impairments who was under her care. 

On September 12, 2025, the Office of the Attorney General charged Roberta D. Gerard (age 43), by way of criminal information, with one count of neglect of an adult with severe impairments, one count of failing to provide treatment, care, goods, and services necessary to maintain the health and safety of an adult with developmental disabilities, one count of obstructing an officer in the execution of duty, and one count of knowingly making a false statement of a crime.

As alleged in the criminal information, on March 19, 2025, the defendant, who was employed as a Direct Support Professional (DSP) at Seven Hills Group Home in Lincoln, picked up her client, the victim, a 45-year-old intellectually and developmentally disabled woman, for a “day out” in the community, as required by the victim’s care plan at Seven Hills. 

As further alleged, after picking up the victim at about 12:50 PM for her “day out,” the defendant stopped at a nail salon on Park Avenue in Cranston and left the victim alone and unattended in her black Lexus SUV for about an hour and a half, according to the defendant’s cell phone records. When the defendant eventually returned to her vehicle, she realized that the victim was no longer inside. At about 4:00 PM, the defendant went to the Cranston Police Department to report the victim missing, providing several false accounts of the events leading up to the victim’s disappearance. 

As alleged, on March 23, 2025, after a five-day search by Cranston Police, a man reported finding a woman matching the victim’s description inside a Honda Pilot parked on Pond Street in Cranston – approximately a block and a half from the nail salon. Cranston Police officers located the victim inside the vehicle, lying in the fetal position and covered in her own urine and feces.

The defendant is scheduled for arraignment on October 22, 2025, in Providence County Superior Court. 

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