A Washington federal appeals court on Tuesday affirmed a criminal contempt order for an Arlington, Virginia, attorney who refused to take the witness stand.

A panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit knocked down solo practitioner Matthew LeFande’s bid to vacate the order. A federal magistrate judge in Washington hit LeFande with a criminal contempt order in September 2017 after he refused to take the witness stand in a civil case that involved two clients. U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson of the District of Columbia held him in contempt and fined him $5,000, and U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson affirmed the order last year.