AUGUSTA – A woman who is accused of embezzling $166,000 from the Maine Trial Lawyers Association pleaded not guilty at her arraignment Wednesday in Kennebec County Superior Court.

Bettysue Higgins of Gardiner, standing next to her attorney, Ronald Bourget, said “not guilty” twice, to the charges of forgery and theft by unauthorized taking.

Higgins, 53, is accused of taking the money in a series of checks she wrote to herself while working as the administrative assistant in the association’s office in Augusta.

According to the indictment, Higgins stole the money from May 2006 to Oct. 8, 2010, the day she was fired.

At the request of the prosecutor, Assistant Attorney General Leann Robbin, Justice Robert Murray set personal recognizance bail for Higgins, with the condition that she call her attorney weekly.

Higgins was a convicted felon when she was hired by the association in September 2002, having stolen $2,045 from a lunch program run by School Administrative District 11.

For that offense in 1991, she was given a five-year suspended sentence.

In a related civil complaint filed in Kennebec County Superior Court, the association is seeking to recoup the money by getting an attachment on Higgins’ property for $132,000.

Steven Prince, who became executive director of the association in May 2006, filed an affidavit in support of that claim. He said Higgins forged his signature on the checks drawn on the association’s operating account, then covered her tracks by transferring money from other accounts and forging tax preparation documents.