A judge found a former teacher guilty of simple assault in an incident that injured a Linwood sixth-grader.
Kimberly Peschi claimed she was trying to right a student's chair when he was leaning back during lunch at Belhaven Middle School.
“I would never intentionally hurt a child, ” Peschi, 40, testified in March.
But a video of the incident shows Peschi's actions intentionally caused the chair to fall, the judge found.
“Mrs Peschi kicked the back of my chair and I smashed my head on the floor,” the student testified of his memory of the day.
When he looked up, Peschi was standing over him: “That’s why chairs are for sitting not leaning,” he recalled her saying before she walked away.
But Peschi said she twice asked if the boy was OK, and that he said yes.
The case was tried by the Atlantic County Prosecutor's Office in Northfield Municipal Court.
Judge Timothy Maguire will later decide on a request by the state to revoke her teaching license.
