For over a decade, a federal court clerk for the Southern District of New York abused his position to steer over 45 criminal defendants to one defense lawyer who paid him for drumming up the business, prosecutors said.

The clerk, Dionisio Figueroa, encouraged defendants to hire Telesforo Del Valle Jr. as their lawyer, claiming that Mr. Del Valle was “especially equipped” to assist them, according to prosecutors.

In one instance, in 2018, Mr. Figueroa told the family of a defendant waiting to post bail that he “knew of a good attorney” who could get them “out of trouble”; he wrote down Mr. Del Valle’s name and phone number on a piece of paper, according to an indictment filed this week.

Many of the defendants whom Mr. Figueroa referred already had free, court-appointed attorneys, prosecutors said, but he “encouraged those individuals to change counsel.”

In exchange for Mr. Figueroa’s services, Mr. Del Valle, who according to his firm’s website has “been a frequent lecturer and panelist for the American Bar Association on the topic of Legal Ethics,” paid him tens of thousands of dollars, prosecutors said.

When questioned in November, Mr. Figueroa denied referring clients to Mr. Del Valle, telling investigators: “I don’t get no money. I don’t have business with nobody.”

“I’m not doing business with no lawyer,” he said, according to court papers, adding, “never in my life, never in my life.”

Mr. Del Valle, 65, also denied having received client referrals from Mr. Figueroa or...

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