INDIANAPOLIS (AP): Attorneys from the Indiana attorney general's office will try to persuade the state appeals court to reinstate criminal misconduct charges against the state's former top utility regulator.
 
       The appeals court is scheduled to hear arguments Monday in the case against former Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission chairman David Lott Hardy.
 
       Then-Gov. Mitch Daniels fired Hardy as commission chairman in 2010 following disclosure of private meetings he had with Duke Energy executives about cost overruns at its coal-gasification power plant at Edwardsport in southwestern Indiana. 
 
       Hardy also helped the agency's top attorney seek a job with Duke while overseeing the Edwardsport case.
 
       A Marion County grand jury indicted Hardy in 2011 on felony charges of official misconduct, but a county judge ruled later changes to the law invalidated those charges.