By Christopher Williams and Mark LaFlamme Click here to read the original series “Face of Crack” published April 24, 2005.,Staff Writers

LEWISTON – Self-described cocaine addict Lisa Hanson was sent back to prison Wednesday less than six months after she was freed after a 1997 conviction for drug dealing.

The 37-year-old Blake Street woman was ordered to serve another two years behind bars after she was arrested for using crack on Feb. 1, in violation of her probation. She could have faced 3 years.

Outside the courthouse Wednesday morning, nearly a dozen of Hanson’s friends and family members chanted and sang songs in her support.

Inside the courtroom, Hanson tried to convince Justice Ellen Gorman that she was a good candidate for the drug court program instead of more prison time.

“Putting me in prison over and over again obviously isn’t working,” she said.

But Gorman had her doubts. It was Hanson’s fifth probation violation since she was arrested in 1997 on a charge of trafficking in cocaine.

“Ms. Hanson’s history of mental health may well keep her out of drug court,” Gorman said.

After conferring later with prosecutors and Hanson’s lawyer, Donald Hornblower, Gorman ruled out setting Hanson free.

Hanson made a tearful plea to the judge, saying how much she has changed.

“I am not the same person,” she said. “I have busted my ass to get this far.”

She said jail had made her cold and uncaring. She only used crack again because she was suicidal, she said. She motioned to her children who sat at the back of the courtroom.

Hanson, the mother of eight children, told the judge that her 14-year-old daughter is pregnant, another reason Hanson believed she should remain free.

“I can do my time, but my family shouldn’t have to keep doing this,” she said.

Barbara Fickett, Hanson’s close friend and godmother to two of her children, sat in court to lend support. She left the courthouse angry after the morning hearing.

“What just occurred is the system failing again,” said Fickett, who described herself as a recovering addict. “It’s like a revolving door here.”

Hanson was chronicled in a Sun Journal series in April in which she was described as the “face of crack.” At the time, she was near the end of her prison sentence at the Maine Correctional Center in Windham.

During a prison interview, Hanson told a reporter she had been in and out of prison over the past 15 years after six convictions for drug trafficking. And she was not convinced she would steer clear of crack once she was released from prison.

“When you’ve been out on the street as long as I have, there’s not a lot you have to do,” Hanson said during the interview. “It’s like riding a bike.”

She was released from state prison on Sept. 26.

By the time Hanson is released from prison after her latest sentence, she will have served a total of 10 years, 10 months and 20 days on the 1997 conviction for drug trafficking.

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