(WineSpectator) - Lawyers for Rudy Kurniawan filed an appeal in New York on Monday challenging his 2013 conviction on charges of conspiracy to sell counterfeit wine. Their main argument is that an FBI search of Kurniawan's home, which turned up extensive evidence of counterfeiting, was unlawful and that evidence should have been suppressed. If the appeals court agrees, it could conceivably order a new trial.

The Indonesian national is currently serving a 10-year sentence in a California federal prison, the only person ever tried and convicted of wine counterfeiting in U.S. federal court. He was also convicted of defrauding a finance company.

In a filing to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, Kurniawan's legal team, led by attorney Jerry Mooney, made three claims: First, that the two searches of Kurniawan’s home in Arcadia, Calif., on the morning of his arrest were improper and the fruits of those searches should be suppressed; second, that multiple charges were improperly combined in the indictment, making it difficult for the jury to sort them out; and finally, that the enormous prices that wealthy collectors paid for Kurniawan’s fake wines “greatly exaggerated” the real financial impact on them, resulting in more jail time for Kurniawan than he might otherwise have gotten.

The Justice department had no comment on the appeal. Its response to the court is due by July 10.

The first claim is based on the undisputed narrative of what happened at the time of Kurniawan’s arrest on March 8, 2012. As soon as he opened his front door at 6 a.m., FBI agents with an arrest warrant handcuffed him on the front lawn. The agents did not yet have a search warrant but entered the house to make a protective sweep of the premises to make sure no armed person was lurking.

During that sweep, they observed evidence of wine counterfeiting activity in plain sight, including bottles with their labels being soaked off in a kitchen sink. When they came upon a locked room, they opened it with a key from Kurniawan's pocket and discovered a wine-counterfeiting workshop. Later that day, having obtained a search warrant, the agents returned to the house, conducted a detailed search, and hauled away boxes of evidence.

In his brief, Mooney claims that the initial search and the reentry with the key "expanded into a general search" and went on for “20 to 30 minutes," exceeding any need to secure the safety of the agents. As for the room they unlocked, Mooney claimed that all the agents needed to do was make a cursory inspection for dangerous people. "It's not as if there was a person who was unaccounted for in the house," Mooney told Wine Spectator. "If the agents felt they needed to preserve evidence, they should have simply secured the house while they applied for a search warrant."