PORTLAND — A former Livermore Falls woman who tried to buy a gun for her drug dealer was released Monday after nearly nearly nine months behind bars.

Nichole Bachelder, 40, had pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to making false statements during the purchase of firearms, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

U.S. District Court Judge John A. Woodcock sentenced Bachelder to “time served” plus three years of supervised release.

Her attorney, Peter Cyr, said his client’s life had been a series of misjudgments and poor choices dating back to her childhood, living in a broken home.

Bachelder’s parents’ protracted divorce when she was 4 years old left her estranged from her mother, Cyr said.

For several years after turning 18, Bachelder worked as an exotic dancer, became involved with Hells Angles and danced at events associated with the biker group and at a club in Bangor, Cyr said.

It was while she was dancing that Bachelder was introduced to cocaine.

“Nichole was young and naïve at the time,” Cyr wrote in a sentencing memorandum.

At age 20, she was repeatedly assaulted. At 21, she had her first child and was a single parent, Cyr said. Three years later, she had her second child.

It was when she became an exotic dancer that Bachelder started using cocaine, a drug associated with that profession and prevalent in that era, Cyr said.

Her drug use continued on and off with periods of sobriety, mostly during the pregnancies of her children, Cyr said. About 10 years ago, Bachelder started using crack cocaine, he said, at first, socially, but later, on a regular basis.

At the time of her crime, Bachelder was smoking crack cocaine daily, Cyr said, waking every morning needing to use it.

Her drug dealer lived nearby in Livermore Falls, Cyr said. One day, he asked her to buy a gun for him “in exchange for cocaine base and money,” Cyr wrote in his memorandum.

“Desperate, Nichole agreed,” Cyr wrote.

She hadn’t known at that time that her drug dealer would turn around and sell the gun as part of a larger firearms dealing conspiracy, Cyr wrote.

Prosecutors said Bachelder lied when filling out forms at a licensed federal firearms dealer in Turner, writing that she lived at an address in Livermore Falls, was the actual buyer of the gun and that she was not a user of, or addicted to, any controlled substance.

According to investigators, Bachelder had been evicted from her Livermore Falls apartment in September, a month before she filled out the firearms dealer’s paperwork with that same address on Oct. 19, 2022, when she tried to buy the gun.

Bachelder had been texting with someone identified only as “Mike,” who had been quizzing her about her unsuccessful efforts to buy the gun.

She later admitted to agents that a co-conspirator had asked her to buy the gun and gave her money for the purchase as they were parked in a pickup truck at the gun shop, according to court papers.

The man in the truck had tried to conceal his identity by wearing a hood and lowering himself in the seat, according to court papers.

Bachelder also later admitted to agents that she was a user of crack cocaine.

She had tried on Oct. 19, 2022, to buy a Glock, model 26, 9 mm pistol at the shop, having called a day earlier to ask about the gun.

After she filled out the paperwork at the shop, she got a delayed response from the National Instant Background Check system, according to court papers.

She paid for the gun, but left the shop without it.

On Nov. 4, 2022, federal agents got a search warrant for her text messages. Later that month, after agents shared her texts with her, she admitted she’d lied on the form.

She went back to the gun shop, which refunded her money. She gave the money to the person who had given it to her to buy the gun, saying she didn’t want to be involved any further, according to court papers.

Since she was charged with the crime, Bachelder entered drug treatment twice, unsuccessfully.

She ended up at Strafford County Department of Corrections in Dover, New Hampshire, where she was treated for substance abuse disorder and has completed several programs aimed at readying inmates for release.

Her father, Trent, told the judge Monday that he believed his daughter needed more than the one year of supervised release recommended by Cyr to maintain her sobriety, having experienced the difficulty of sobriety himself.

He called his daughter his best friend and said,” I believe she’s had enough” of drugs in her life. “I think she’s seen the light.”

Bachelder plans to live with a longtime friend who, with her husband, have lived in sobriety for years and have prepared a room for Bachelder and lined up a job for her.

Reviewing Bachelder’s prolonged history of relationships with men who mistreated her, Judge Woodcock advised her to take her time to assess possible partners’ treatment of her.

He also cautioned her to take care when returning to her hometown to steer clear of reminders of her drug use that might draw her back into that lifestyle.

“The drug will say to you, ‘Where have you been?’ (and) ‘Come back’ (and) ‘Why have you abandoned me?'” Woodcock said.

Impressed by her recent resolve, Woodcock was reassuring.

“I think you can do it,” he said.