Topeka ? Former Westar Energy chairman, president and CEO David Wittig has again asked that he be allowed to remain free while appealing his conviction in a loan conspiracy case and the sentence of just over four years that he got for it.

A one-page notice filed Monday said Wittig would appeal to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver. He was convicted in July of conspiracy, money laundering and four counts of committing false bank entries.

The case, unrelated to Westar, involved a $1.5 million personal loan that Wittig made to Topeka banker Clinton Odell Weidner II after Weidner approved a $1.5 increase in Wittig’s line of credit at the Capital City Bank.

In addition to his sentence of four years and three months, Wittig was fined $1 million. Weidner, who had been president of the bank, got six years and six months, and was ordered to forfeit his interest in an Arizona land deal he financed through the Wittig loan.

After Wittig’s sentencing on Feb. 26, his lawyer asked U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson to allow him to remain free during the appeal, and that request was repeated in the document filed Monday.

Wittig contends he should be free during appeal because he is challenging his convictions based on “substantial questions” of law and fact related to his sentence, and because Robinson already has said he isn’t a danger to the community. Wittig also said that he wouldn’t flee and that his appeal wasn’t for the purpose of delay.

On Monday, a motion and order in the case that were filed on Friday remained under seal. It is the second time federal court records in a case linked to Wittig have been sealed.

Last month, a prosecution request to block Wittig and Douglas Lake, 53, of New Canaan, Conn., from selling property was sealed for four days. Wittig and Lake, also a former Westar executive, are charged in U.S. District Court with 40 felonies each, including conspiracy, fraud and other crimes. Prosecutors allege that the two men tried to loot Westar, the state’s largest electric utility.

The trial in that case is scheduled for Sept. 7.