Denver ? A federal appeals court Thursday ordered former Westar Energy Inc. Chief Executive Officer David Wittig and a former bank president to be resentenced on charges of conspiring to cover up an illegal $1.5 million loan.

But the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused to toss out the pair’s convictions.

Prosecutors alleged banker Clinton Odell Weidner II approved a $1.5 million increase in Wittig’s $3.5 million personal line of credit at Capital City Bank in Topeka, Kan., so Wittig could lend the money to Weidner for a real estate investment in Scottsdale, Ariz.

“Although the government’s case was largely circumstantial, we conclude that the evidence was sufficient and that the jury instructions were adequate,” the court found.

Wittig was convicted in July 2003 of conspiracy, bank fraud and money laundering. Weidner, the former president of the Topeka bank, pleaded guilty to two of six counts against him on the opening day of the trial, and jurors eventually convicted him of the remaining four counts.

Wittig was sentenced to more than four years in prison, but had been free pending appeal. That changed in January when a judge sent him to federal prison for violating terms of his release on convictions for bank fraud and trying to loot Westar.

Weidner was sentenced him to 6 1/2 years in prison. He began serving his sentence in April 2004.

The case is unrelated to Wittig’s conviction in September on 39 counts of conspiracy, wire fraud, circumventing internal controls and money laundering as part of a scheme to loot the Topeka, Kan.-based utility.

Paula Junghans, Wittig’s attorney, said she hadn’t seen the opinion and couldn’t comment.

In ordering the pair to be resentenced, the appeals court ruled that trial judge Julie Robinson erred in calculating the amount of loss incurred in the crime. The court called this calculation “a key component of the sentencing decision.”

Robinson determined that $1.5 million was the “intended” loss involved, meaning the maximum sentence possible was eight years in prison.

The defendants argued the transaction didn’t result in any loss, saying Wittig had adequate collateral for the increase in his line of credit.

“The bank could not have lost a dollar on this case,” Weidner’s attorney, Bruce Simon, said in a phone interview with The Associated Press late Thursday. “Wittig had more than enough security to cover the loan.”

Had Robinson determined there was no loss, the maximum sentence would have been one year in prison.

Simon said he expected the ruling would reduce his client’s sentence “significantly.”

But Simon stressed an unresolved issue still affected his client’s sentence. He said he is appealing the two guilty pleas entered on the first day of the trial, claiming his client received inadequate representation.

If those convictions for two counts of making false bank entries aren’t set aside, Simon said Weidner still would have the same amount of time left to serve. That’s because those convictions resulted in concurrent sentences. He said Thursday’s ruling didn’t address those two pleas.