Kwame Kilpatrick took his fight for freedom to a federal appeals court Thursday, arguing that he is not a flight risk or a danger to the community and is vulnerable to a prison attack due to a bum knee.

Kilpatrick needs to be released on bond so he can visit his wife and three sons and undergo surgery on a torn knee tendon, his lawyer wrote in a filing Thursday in the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati. He allegedly slipped on the rain-soaked steel step of a U.S. Marshals Service van on March 11 before being driven to prison in Milan after being found guilty in the corruption case.