A lawsuit claims that Pamela Smart was wrongly put into solitary confinement after a prison guard found a plastic cake knife in her cell.

Pame Smart is serving a life sentence in a New York prison for her role in the 1990 murder of her husband, Gregg Smart, in Derry.

In a federal lawsuit, Pame Smart alleges that the guard confiscated the knife in 2012, even though she had it for 17 years and it was never a problem in previous searches.

She said she was then sent to solitary confinement for 90 days, where her showers were limited and she wasn’t allowed to participate in church programs.

Pame Smart said officers taunted her by calling her “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Jason” in reference to the knife.

She is seeking to have the incident removed from her record and asking for an unspecified amount of money.

Pamela Smart’s spokesperson, Eleanor Pam, released the following statement on the lawsuit:

“Pamela Smart’s mother bought her a set of cooking utensils 17 or 18 years ago that were in compliance with prison regulations. Among the items was a non-serrated, plastic, half-moon shaped cake-knife. It is not an actual knife despite its name; nor does it look or function like one. It is most assuredly not a weapon or even a potential weapon. This item, primarily used to cut cheese cake, was kept in plain sight on a shelf in Ms Smart’s cell during all the years since it had been received as a gift from her mother. It was never treated by Ms. Smart as contraband because it wasn’t. Although many other prisoners had similar or identical utensils, also purchased in compliance with prison regulations, Ms. Smart alone was punished, insulted, harassed and demeaned by Corrections Officers who mocked her, called her names, and threw her into solitary.

“This injustice speaks for itself because the prison has long sold plastic serrated knives in the inmate commissary, an object that actually can cause injuries or harm. The infraction allegedly committed by Ms. Smart is bogus. It was hyped by prison authorities to the highest level of breathless accusation and punishment–and is nothing more than yet another pretext and opportunity to compromise Pamela Smart’s chances for equitable treatment, redress and freedom.”