A former Kailua dental assistant pleaded no contest in state court Wednesday to administering pain and sedative drugs to a 2-year-old patient without a prescription.

Nicole M. Dudoit, 29, pleaded no contest to two counts of dispensing the drugs without a written prescription. This came after Circuit Judge Dexter Del Rosario dismissed a second-degree assault charge against her, saying the state failed to present evidence to support the assault charge.

Dudoit faces a maximum five-year prison term for each of the drug charges at sentencing in November. Her lawyer, Todd Eddins, said he’ll file papers asking Del Rosario to defer Dudoit’s no contest pleas, to give her the opportunity to avoid conviction and have the charges eventually dismissed.

An Oahu grand jury indicted Dudoit in March on an assault charge for causing serious or substantial bodily injury to the 2-year-old girl by allegedly administering meperidine and chloral hydrate.

The state Attorney General’s Office said the girl underwent a procedure that lasted about an hour and remained unconscious for 12 hours, causing a protracted loss of function in her central nervous system and placing her life at risk. The girl completely recovered.

Del Rosario said the state failed to present evidence that the girl suffered injury.

“We said from the outset that it was radical for the attorney general to charge a hardworking, caring dental assistant with assault. The judge correctly ruled that the state’s case failed to establish probable cause,” Eddins said.

Deputy Attorney General Michael Parrish told Del Rosario that Dudoit administered the drugs without a license, prescription or a person authorized to dispense the drugs supervising her.

All three charges are Class C felonies punishable by up to five years in prison. However, because the victim was less than 8 years old when the alleged crimes were committed, Dudoit would have been eligible for enhanced penalties of 10 years in prison for each of the three charges.

Eddins said that when Del Rosario dismissed the assault charge, he also removed the sentencing enhancement for the two drug charges.

Del Rosario initially said he was dismissing the assault charge with prejudice, which would have prevented the state from refiling it. He changed the dismissal to without prejudice after Parrish told him the state intends to refile the charge with additional information. Del Rosario denied Parrish’s request to also dismiss the two drug charges to allow the state to refile all three charges together.

The charges against Dudoit stem from a Nov. 20, 2013, incident at Island Dentistry for Children in Kailua. Two weeks later, 3-year-old Finley Boyle died from cardiac arrest after she was given a cocktail of drugs to sedate her at Island Dentistry.

Boyle’s parents sued and reached an out-of-court settlement with Island Dentistry and owner Dr. Lilly Geyer, who closed the business in January 2014.

The Attorney General’s Office said in court records that it and the state Narcotics Enforcement Division are investigating Geyer for prescribing and directing her staff to administer prescription drugs after her state license to prescribe drugs expired. The attorney general also said the office is investigating Geyer for Medicaid fraud for submitting claims to the state medical assistance program for services she performed after her license expired.