A former clerk for the Manhattan federal court couldn’t convince the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to overturn his two-year prison sentence for referring court offenders to a criminal defense attorney, in exchange for thousands of dollars worth of bribes.

Public defenders had argued that the sentence was unreasonable for Dionisio Figueroa, who had no criminal history and who hadn’t “excessively benefited” from the scheme, and claimed the court had miscalculated the amount of kickbacks received from since-disbarred criminal defense attorney, Telesforo del Valle Jr., as ranging between $40,000 and $95,000.