LEWISTON — A local woman who used the electronic benefit transfer cards of three men to food shop for them last year was summonsed last month on a new charge of misuse of a public benefits instrument.

Roberta Ishola, 51, of 116 Horton St. pleaded not guilty Wednesday in 8th District Court to that and four drug charges, all misdemeanors.

Ishola served a week in jail in December after pleading guilty to two counts of misuse of a public benefits instrument. She was placed on one year of administrative release, which barred her from having illegal drugs and allowed her to be searched for drugs if she was suspected of having them. She was also prohibited from using EBT cards that she is not authorized by the Department of Health and Human Services to use.

According to police summonses issued to Ishola on June 9 in Auburn during a vehicle stop, she was charged with unlawfully having prescription drugs, including morphine, amphetamine salts, a stimulant sometimes used to treat ADHD, haloperidol, an antipsychotic, and lorazepam, a sedative.

Daniel Dube, Ishola’s attorney, said Thursday his client had been taking care of her mother who had been in hospice in Saco and had recently died, but still had three of her mother’s medications in her car. The EBT card also had belonged to her mother, Dube said.

Prosecutors told the Sun Journal in December that two of the men whose EBT cards were found in Ishola’s possession last year were homeless and had no means of transportation. Another cardholder was disabled and was unable to get to the supermarket. Although the three men had given Ishola permission, in sworn statements, to shop with their cards for them, she hadn’t gotten authorization from DHHS.

Under state law, no one but the named cardholder may use the state-issued EBT card for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP benefits, without prior approval by DHHS.

Prosecutors dropped a drug charge in December stemming from Ishola’s possession of four Adderall pills, which are amphetamine salts, prescribed to her grandson. Ishola has power of attorney over her grandson, Dube said, explaining the presence of the amphetamine salts in Ishola’s car in June.

Her next court appearance is scheduled for November.

She is free on $200 cash bail.

In December, Dube had told the Sun Journal that food security is a serious problem. He said he planned to work with local legislators to try to change state law so that friends and family members seeking to lend a hand to those in need of food who lack means of transportation aren’t punished for their good intentions.

Dube said his client is a “very family-centered” person and “these have been very family-centered cases.”

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