A state panel upheld the firing of a former state employee who was let go for sending sexually explicit e-mails on the job.

His lawyer says this was too extreme of a punishment.

The Wisconsin employment relations commission released parts of the e-mails that cost Phillip Koenig his job as an information technology official.

The Department of Public Instruction fired Koenig in 2006 after the department's investigation found well over half of the more than 5,000 e-mails he sent were personal in nature, and many were sent during work hours and sexually explicit. Koenig admitted sending them.

The 43-year-old pleaded guilty last year to sexually assaulting a high school student.