NEW YORK (AP) — Three defense lawyers bribed a court insider to steer clients to them, shelling out over $40,000 to get recommended to arrestees with means as they awaited arraignment, prosecutors said Monday.

By paying off a worker for a nonprofit group that interviews new defendants, the lawyers and a paralegal working for them “undermined the confidence in our criminal justice system,” Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. said.