From staff reports

An appeal by a Vicksburg attorney on his conviction of mail and wire fraud has been delayed because of Hurricane Gustav-related damage to a federal court building in New Orleans.

Arguments by attorneys for Robert Arledge had been scheduled for Thursday at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Arledge, a former candidate for Warren County judge, was convicted in 2007 of seven counts of mail and wire fraud for allowing clients to make false claims against the drug fen-phen, a prescription diet drug pulled from the market in 1997 after research revealed it could cause heart problems.

He has maintained he didn’t know the information was false since his indictment and arrest in 2006.

Arledge was sentenced to 6 1/2 years in prison and ordered to pay $5.6 million in restitution after a federal court found him guilty in a scam that cheated drug company Wyeth out of more than $6.7 million. He remained in a federal appeal in Alabama.

The New Orleans court is scheduled to reopen Monday, but a new date for the appeal was not immediately available.