(Wine-Searcher) - Wine fraudster Rudy Kurniawan gets back in the ring for another round.

Rudy Kurniawan's lawyers have delivered their final brief in the fraudster's ongoing appeal, arguing again that the search that took place following his arrest was illegal and should be struck from evidence.

The brief, filed in the Southern District of New York, sets out why the search warrant should not have been issued, stating that the evidence on which it was based was outdated, and that the means by which the house was searched was illegal.

Kurniawan was arrested in March 2012, and FBI agents conducted a search of the property, finding counterfeit bottles and other evidence of fraud. The search warrant was obtained later that day.

The entire appeal centers around a supposed breach of Kurniawan's fourth amendment rights, as the agents who searched his property did so without – as the defence argues – any probable cause. Evidence was obtained during a protective sweep of the house, but Kurniawan's lack of violent history made this wholly unnecessary, according to his lawyers, and the sweep was in fact just an illegal search.

The document asks "How did [the agents] determine these spreadsheets were 'apparently created by Kurniawan' or determine the various reasons wines were returned 'based on various defects, such as photocopied labels', while making sure no nefarious person was lurking about in the house?"

Kurniawan's defence lawyers also suggest that there was not probable cause for the search warrant to be issued after the fact. They highlight that the shipments of empty wine bottles to Kurniawan's residence – cited by the US Attorney for Southern New York as evidence of fraud – took place five years prior and were thus inadmissible as evidence.

The defence brief states that "In light of these circumstances it was unlikely, if not improbable, that any of the empty bottles [obtained in 2007] would still be present at Kurniawan's residence at the time the application for the search warrant was made."

The brief also argues that the case of wine that was spotted through the doorway of the house was also not enough evidence for the warrant to have been issued. The case of Joseph Drouhin wine was deemed by the brief as "not a wine worthy of counterfeiting" due to its top market price of $499 a bottle, and was not entered into evidence during the trial.