Syracuse, NY -- A disbarred Syracuse bankruptcy lawyer, who spent nearly four years in prison, will have a chance to clear his name after an appeals court threw out his fraud conviction.

Christopher Chadick was found guilty by jury in 2011 of defrauding 114 clients by taking their money and doing no legal work. He was ordered to pay $94,500 in restitution and sentenced to 4 to 12 years in prison. He served the minimum before being paroled, said his lawyer, Salvatore Lanza.

But an appeals court ruled in November that retired County Court Judge William Walsh erred in striking the testimony from the prosecution's key witness, Hugh Fox, who served as Chadick's office manager.

Prosecutor Beth Van Doren believes Chadick and Fox worked together to take clients' retainer fees without doing any work.

But during trial, Fox testified that Chadick had not done anything wrong and that Fox only pleaded guilty to fraud to avoid harsher penalties, the appeals court noted.

In response, Judge Walsh improperly struck all of Fox's testimony from the record, the appeals court ruled. If Fox's testimony had been allowed to stand, it could have provided evidence pointing toward Chadick's innocence, the court ruled.

Lanza blamed office mismanagement for errors that caused clients to pay money and never receive services. He argued that Fox's testimony at trial would have pointed to problems within the office, not willful criminal activity.

But Van Doren said she was not deterred by the appeals court verdict.

"I am disappointed but I respect the Appellate Court's decision regarding Judge Walsh's ruling pertaining to the testimony of the co-defendant Hugh Fox," she said in an e-mail. "The People are prepared to retry this matter. I am sorry that the victims of this crime must go through the trauma of testifying again."

Both sides are due back to court today at 1:30 p.m. before County Court Judge Thomas J. Miller, who has since been elected to fill Walsh's old seat.