NEWPORT — The youngest of five people — including three family members — charged in connection with the dumping of the body of a suspected overdose victim in the woods earlier this spring will plead guilty.

Jacob Ayotte, 19, has filed a notice of intent to plead guilty with Sullivan County Superior Court in Newport to abuse of a corpse and unauthorized release and transfer of a body, according to a plea agreement entered May 8.

Ayotte will serve a 12 month sentence in Sullivan County jail’s residential minimum security Transitional Reentry and Inmate Life Skills (TRAILS) treatment program on the abuse of corpse charge.

On the unauthorized release and transfer of a body charge, he is to receive a second 12-month sentence — suspended for five years — and be placed on probation for two years. He’s to have no contact with the victim’s family, per the plea agreement.

Ayotte, who is currently free on bail and residing in Newport, is scheduled for plea and sentencing hearing on May 22, two months after he was charged.

“He’s a young kid and he made a bad decision, unthinking in the moment and the (plea agreement) takes into account his willingness to take responsibility, his age and that he has no prior criminal record,” said Daniel Duckett, a Manchester, attorney who represents Ayotte, “He’s really a good kid.”

Ayotte, along with his mother, older brother and two other individuals were charged in March with abusing a corpse and falsifying physical evidence in the death of a 40-year-old Newport man who is suspected to have died from a drug overdose at the Ayottes’ residence on Paradise Road in Newport.

The occupants of the residence are alleged to have kept the body of the dead man — who had been reported missing by family members a few days earlier — under a sheet in the kitchen for three days before they removed the body to the woods, where it was discovered by police “about 100 yards away from the house ... laying face down in the snow, frozen,” according to the police affidavit in support of the charges.

There was another fatal overdose at the same address earlier this year, according to police, but this time residents did not alert authorities.

Ayotte’s mother, Laurel Ayotte, 50, and older brother Christopher Ayotte, 29, are both being held in preventive detention at Sullivan County Department of Corrections in Unity, awaiting court dates.

Also charged are Candace Fontaine, 31, who is scheduled for a bail hearing on May 23, and Ryan Palmer, 32, is scheduled for a dispositional conference on May 25.

All have pleaded not guilty.

Contact John Lippman at jlippman@vnews.com.

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