KENNEBUNK — A Lewiston woman was arrested early Friday morning after police stopped a car on the turnpike and said they recovered several grams of heroin.

Elizabeth Lothrop, 28, was charged with furnishing scheduled drugs and violating conditions of release from an earlier drug-trafficking arrest.

Early Friday morning, Maine State Police stopped a car in the northbound lane on I-95 in Kennebunk. Police said Lothrop was a passenger in the car driven by Stavros Mendros, a former state lawmaker, city councilor and political consultant in Lewiston.

Mendros was not charged. Reached at home Friday evening, he said he had been driving for Uber and that Lothrop had asked him for a ride.

He’s writing a book about heroin addiction, Mendros said, and knows Lothrop through that project. When she asked him for a ride late Thursday night, he agreed to do it for $100 plus gas money.

Around 2:30 a.m., just as he was passing the turnpike plaza in Kennebunk, police stopped his car, claiming he had been driving in the center of the road, Mendros said.

Police removed both Mendros and Lothrop from the vehicle as they investigated.

“One minute I’m in cuffs and had no idea what was happening, then they were letting me out and telling me to drive safe,” Mendros said. “I’m not even sure what happened it was so surreal.”

When she was arrested, Lothrop had been free on bail after she was charged in Lewiston in December with aggravated drug trafficking and engaging in prostitution. She was indicted on those charges in March in Androscoggin County Superior Court.

Lothrop, after making a court appearance Friday afternoon, was being held on $10,000 cash bail at the York County Jail in Alfred, according to jail officials.

Mendros said although he is writing about the scourge of heroin in Maine, he has never tried the drug.

“I’ve never even smoked a cigarette in my life,” he said.

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