A lawyer for a former Coca-Cola secretary who was found guilty of conspiring to steal trade secrets from the company says her client was wrongfully convicted partly because the presiding judge cut off cross-examination of a key witness and gave improper instructions to the jury.

Joya Williams' lawyer, Janice Singer, said in papers filed Oct. 12 in the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta that Williams' conviction should be reversed, or she should at least be granted a new trial.

Singer also challenged Williams' eight-year prison sentence as unfair, given the way U.S. District Judge J. Owen Forrester arrived at the sentence and the lighter sentences he imposed on the other two defendants.