Out of the four young women charged with mandated failure to report alleged abuse at Good Samaritan Society of Albert Lea, one pleaded guilty and three pleaded not guilty to their charges during an appearance in Freeborn County District Court earlier this month.

Freeborn County Attorney Craig Nelson said the teenagers — who were juveniles at the time of the alleged incidents — appeared in court the week before the arraignment of the two young women charged as adults in the case.

Because information about juveniles appearing in court is not widely available to the public, the time of the appearance for these teenagers was not known beforehand. Limited information is also available from the actual appearances as well.

However, Nelson said now that pleas have been entered, a pre-sentence investigation is being conducted for the young woman who pleaded guilty, and pre-trial hearings are being scheduled for the other three young women who pleaded not guilty.

The two young women charged as adults — Brianna Broitzman and Ashton Larson — have not yet entered pleas to their charges of assault in the fifth degree, criminal abuse of vulnerable adults, disorderly conduct by a caregiver and mandated reporter failure to report. Their next appearance in court is at 1 p.m. March 23.

Freeborn County prosecutors charged the six young women — who are all now adults — at the beginning of December. They were all nursing assistants at the Good Samaritan facility at the time of the alleged incidents.

The charges came after an investigation into allegations of abuse by the Albert Lea Police Department, the Freeborn County Sheriff’s Office and the Minnesota Department of Health.

The details of the allegations surfaced after the release of the Department of Health’s report in August that concluded four teenagers were involved in verbal, sexual and emotional abuse of 15 residents at the nursing home in Albert Lea. The residents suffered from mental degradation conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

The teenagers are no longer employed at the nursing home.