Pamela Smart Claims a Plastic Knife Infraction Could Be Keeping Her from Getting Prison Sentence Reduced

Pamela Smart believes that a plastic cake knife may be keeping her in prison and she has filed documents in federal court in an attempt to get her sentence reduced, PEOPLE confirms.

Smart filed a federal lawsuit in 2015 against prison officials at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women in New York.

In documents filed last month, she alleges wrongful discipline for a November 2012 incident in which prison officials found a plastic, non-serrated cake knife in her cell. After an inquiry, Smith was found not guilty of possession of a weapon but was punished for the lesser offense of having contraband.

In the suit, obtained by PEOPLE, Smart argues that the infraction could hinder her ability to appeal to the governor of New Hampshire to reduce her sentence.

Additionally, Smart says that the plastic knife had not previously been a violation of the rules. “This utensil had been in my possession for seventeen years,” she wrote in her most recent answer in the suit. “It had been in my cell during numerous previous searches.”

The prison filed a motion to dismiss the suit last month, stating that they “acted properly” in handling the knife incident. A judge has yet to rule on the motion.

• Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter.

Smart, now 50, has been incarcerated for more than half her life. In May 1990, she was arrested after enlisting her then-teenage lover, William “Billy” Flynn, and his three friends to kill her husband, Gregg.

At the time, Smart was a 22-year-old media coordinator at Winnacunnet High School in Hampton, New Hampshire.

The case quickly became international news — and even helped inspire the 1996 Nicole Kidman movie To Die For.

Smart was found guilty of being an accomplice to first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and witness tampering and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, though she has repeatedly maintained her innocence.

“We all believed that these boys would never have done this on their own,” Gregg’s brother told PEOPLE in 2014. “I believe the sentence was fair.”

The four teenagers involved have all since been paroled, including Flynn, who pulled the trigger.

• PEOPLE’s special edition True Crime Stories: 35 Real Cases That Inspired the Show Law & Order is on sale now.

Smart and her legal team are petitioning the New Hampshire governor to grant her clemency or a sentence reduction. She believes the cake knife could be keeping her from getting what she wants.

“I have been a model inmate throughout the time that I have been incarcerated,” she stated in her suit. “These infractions work to characterize me as dangerous and lawless. I have never been violent or intended to commit any acts of violence at BHCF [the prison]. These offenses are simply wrong and unjust.”

“I have a chance at obtaining freedom and would like to ensure that all efforts are made to maximize that possibility,” she wrote in the federal court affidavit. “Absolving myself of these false and unjust allegations is hugely important in those efforts.”

The case continues to move through the courts.