The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has ruled that a Texas businessman who was sentenced to two years in prison for bankruptcy fraud may use the sale of the proceeds of his house to pay his criminal defense attorneys, rejecting a U.S. bankruptcy trustee’s attempts to claim the home sale proceeds as part of his estate.

Curtis Harold DeBerry, the former owner of a failed produce company in Boerne, Texas, was eventually sentenced to two years in prison last year for hiding assets from creditors in bankruptcy.