Aust 'Robin Hood' loses US court battle

An Australian self-help author who committed a bizarre bank hold-up in the US has lost a new attempt to get his conviction overturned.

Corey Donaldson, 42, portrayed himself at his 2013 trial in Wyoming as a Robin Hood-style hero who robbed a Jackson Hole bank of $US140,000 to give to the poor.

The jury didn't buy it, announcing its guilty verdict after just 50 minutes of deliberations.

Donaldson lost an appeal in 2014 and in his latest court loss, US District Court judge Alan Johnson last week refused to vacate his five-year jail sentence.

"It is ordered, adjudged and decreed that this matter is dismissed," Judge Johnson wrote.

Donaldson chose to represent himself at the 2013 trial, but claimed in his latest appeal he didn't get adequate representation.

Judge Johnson rejected Donaldson's claim that a public defender who sat alongside the Australian during the trial was "deliberately prejudicial".

Donaldson said his hold-up was to help the poor, but at the trial the court heard how he terrorised a bank manager by claiming Mexican drug cartel members had placed explosives outside the bank.

Donaldson, an author of relationship books who grew up in Macclesfield, Victoria, wore sunglasses, a driving cap and spoke with a South African accent during the robbery.

He claimed to have travelled around the US handing out thousands of dollars from the robbery to the homeless and charities.

However, prosecutors said he was staying in a $US347 a night hotel suite in Utah and planned to mail $US11,000 in cash to two family members in Victoria when he was arrested.

He is serving his sentence at North Carolina's CI Rivers prison.