New Orleans mayoral candidate Kimberly Williamson Butler has been having a hard time with some judges at the criminal court on Tulane Avenue.

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Last month they put Butler in jail for three days and this month they locked her and her staff out of her office and evidence storage rooms, The Times Picayune reports.

Currently clerk of the criminal district court, Butler took time out from her mayoral campaign last week to file a civil lawsuit accusing two judges and an administrator of usurping her powers as an elected official.

The suit seeks to force Criminal Court Judges Camille Buras and Ray Bigelow and their judicial administrator, Liz Stogner, to explain what authority they had to change the locks and deny Butler access to her office and evidence rooms.

Last month they put her in jail for three days for ignoring a court order to turn over to her predecessor a stalled Federal Emergency Management Agency application and cleanup of a basement-level evidence room flooded during Hurricane Katrina.