Former Reliant Energy gas trader Jerry Futch — who was arrested and charged under particularly heavy-handed circumstances — has filed a motion to withdraw his prior plea deal with the Justice Department and a motion to dismiss his indictment on four counts of reporting false transaction data to publishers that produce indexes used to value natural gas contracts.

Futch’s surprising motions were the latest developments in a series of controversial criminal cases that the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of Texas has been pursuing against former traders of natural gas who worked for various Houston-based companies.

The case against Futch is one of about a dozen that the Justice Department has been pursuing in regard to alleged manipulation of natural gas trading indexes, which are used to value billions of dollars in gas contracts and derivatives.

Industry publications such as Inside FERC Gas Market Report use data from traders to calculate the index price of natural gas, which affects the level of profits that traders can generate.

In Futch’s case and in the related trader cases, it remains unclear in what context the allegedly false information was transmitted or whether the publication even used any false information. However, the government’s theory of criminal liability is that it needs only to prove that fake trades were reported to the publications and not that the trades were actually published or affected the markets.

Eleven other former traders have been charged in similar cases, eight of whom (including Futch) have pled guilty. Four others others are currently awaiting trial, including former Dynegy trader Michelle Valencia and former El Paso trader Greg Singleton.

Futch’s motions are particularly interesting in that they assert the argument that Reliant Energy and its Houston-based counsel, Baker & Botts, effectively threw Futch to the wolves in not making him aware that he was a target of the criminal investigation into the false data reporting and that his statements in a Commodities Futures Trading Commission civil investigation could be used against him in the criminal investigation.

As has become typical in this era of the vanishing attorney-client privilege, Reliant Energy entered into a cooperation agreement with the CFTC in November 2003 in which the company agreed to give the government broad access to its employees such as Futch. Although Reliant Energy and Baker & Botts contend that Futch was advised that his statements in the civil investigation could be used against him, Reliant Energy did not provide Futch with independent counsel during the investigation.