Admitted Kaua'i fraud artist James Lull is under federal investigation for possible new crimes in Washington state and showed "deception" when asked in a March lie detector test if he had hidden assets from his creditors, according to newly filed federal court papers.

The documents are part of an increasingly heated exchange between the trustee in charge of Lull's $50 million bankruptcy case and Lull's criminal defense attorney, who wants to block the trustee from testifying when Lull is sentenced next week for fraud.

Federal law allows crime victims to speak at the sentencing of their victimizers, but bankruptcy trustee Ronald Kotoshirodo "is not a victim of the crime Mr. Lull is being sentenced for committing," Lull's lawyer, Federal Public Defender Peter Wolff, wrote in a court motion last week.

But Kotoshirodo, through his attorney, former Hawai'i Attorney General Michael Lilly, said he is merely trying to advise the court on whether Lull has complied with a court instruction that Lull fully cooperate in efforts to identify and recover assets that could be used to repay his creditors and victims.

A former Kaua'i mortgage broker, Lull declared bankruptcy in 2006 and moved to the Seattle area, where he was living when he was indicted here on charges of operating a Ponzi scheme that defrauded investors of tens of millions of dollars.

Lull pleaded guilty to defrauding as many as 50 victims of up to $30 million and was ordered to cooperate with Kotoshirodo in the search for assets while he awaited sentencing in the case.

U.S. District Judge Susan Oki Mollway was scheduled to sentence Lull April 14 but ordered a month's delay after hearing from some of Lull's victims and saying she wanted more information about the extent of Lull's cooperation.

Kotoshirodo filed papers last week saying that Lull has not fully cooperated and has told acquaintances in Washington that he has hidden assets from his victims and creditors.

This week the trustee filed a letter from the lawyer for a Seattle-area coin store who said that Lull had been buying and trading in coins and jewelry worth more than $9,000 in recent months. The coin dealer, Kenny Vilkin, has been interviewed twice by an FBI agent about his dealings with Lull, the lawyer's letter said.

Kotoshirodo also filed documents in the bankruptcy stating the results of a lie detector test Lull underwent in March.

The polygraph examiner reported that "when Lull was questioned regarding whether Lull has disclosed all of his assets or whether Lull is concealing his assets from the bankruptcy court, Lull's recorded answers indicated deception," according to Lilly.

And the examiner said that "Lull's responses peaked during questioning on hidden assets and on whether certain individuals are hiding assets for Lull," Lilly said.

Defense attorney Wolff said in his motions last week that the prosecution and the defense have agreed that Lull's cooperation while awaiting sentencing has been enough to qualify him for a slightly reduced sentence.

Now Kotoshirodo wants to talk about "Mr. Lull's conduct over the past year and half or so, and makes allegations that he has continued to defraud people while this matter has been pending and has assets he has not disclosed to this court or in the course of the bankruptcy proceeding," Wolff wrote.

Those allegations have nothing to do with the crime for which Lull is being sentenced, Wolff wrote.

"Permitting the bankruptcy trustee to make further statements to this Court is unnecessary and a waste of judicial resources," the defense lawyer argued.

"It also risks erosion of this court's objectivity and role as a neutral arbiter," Wolff said.

And he questioned the constitutionality of "forcing" Lull to defend himself "against not just the government but also against a ... third person, who is acting almost as a special second prosecutor in this criminal proceeding."

In a written order filed Thursday, Mollway said she could sentence Lull to a longer sentence for reasons "unrelated to any alleged hiding of assets."

The sentencing guidelines agreed to by the defense and prosecution in the Lull case, Mollway wrote, "do not take into account the devastation to the lives of the victims."