AUGUSTA — A pharmacy technician who worked at the Manchester Rite Aid pleaded guilty last week to charges of stealing drugs from there May 23 and to violating conditions of release.
The plea came at a hearing at the Capital Judicial Center, where she was due to be arraigned on an indictment.
Amanda J. Rickards, 28, of Livermore, was placed on deferred disposition for a year. Under the terms of the agreement, if she complies with certain conditions, she will be able to withdraw the plea to the felony charge of stealing drugs and instead plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of theft.
Conditions of the deferred disposition require that Rickards pay a $15 monthly supervision fee to the Kennebec County district attorney’s office and have no contact with Rite Aid property.
If she is successful, the sentence is to be 30 days in jail, with the remainder of the 180-day sentence suspended, and a year of probation.
If she is unsuccessful and is convicted on the felony charge, she could be sentenced up to a maximum of five years in prison.
In the meantime, Rickards was ordered to report to jail Dec. 1 to serve a 30-day sentence — which is to be concurrent to the other sentence — for violating conditions of release. She also was ordered to pay $36 restitution to the district attorney’s office for the drugs.
In exchange for her plea, a charge of unlawful possession of drugs was dismissed.
Rickards also had her pharmacy technician license revoked in June. She had held the license since May 2012. A consent agreement filed with the State of Maine Board of Pharmacy says the board received a complaint June 1 that Rickards had diverted controlled substances from the pharmacy where she worked.
The agreement says that on May 23, 2015, “Ms. Rickards took 28 oxycodone 15 milligram tablets from a filled prescription prior to it being dispensed to the patient. Ms. Rickards subsequently sold these oxycodone tablets on the street.”
The pharmacy board voted June 4 to suspend her license and then offered her a consent agreement, in which she accepted a reprimand and a license revocation.
Betty Adams — 621-5631
Twitter: @betadams
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