Topeka ? An appeals court has granted a request by former Westar Energy Inc. chief executive David Wittig to be released from prison on bond in a case involving what prosecutors call the looting of the utility company.

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver granted a motion late Friday that could allow Wittig to be released from prison “within the next week,” his appellate attorney, Steven Reiss, told The Topeka Capital-Journal.

However, Wittig could be sent back to prison later, depending on future action in the cases against him.

Wittig has been serving an 18-year sentence in the Westar case and is serving a new two-year sentence in a bank fraud case.

On Thursday, a federal judge in Kansas said Wittig could leave prison on bond while he appealed the sentence in the bank fraud case. But Wittig wasn’t freed after that order because U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson revoked his bond in the looting case.

Wittig’s attorneys asked the appeals court Friday to release him on bond in the Westar case.

A federal jury convicted Wittig in September 2005 of 39 federal felonies, all tied to looting Westar. Those convictions were overturned by the appeals court last month but Wittig can still be held on the charges because the appeals court gave prosecutors until Feb. 20 to ask the court to reconsider its decision.

On Friday, Wittig’s attorneys argued that the extension until Feb. 20 should not keep Wittig in jail until then.

In a two-page order Friday, the appellate judges cited Thursday’s decision by Robinson in which she said the reasons she revoked Wittig’s bonds now have been remedied. The judges also cited the fact that prosecutors didn’t oppose his request.

Wittig is being held at a federal detention center at Leavenworth in a facility separate from the federal prison there.