A Queens-based criminal defense lawyer was sentenced Monday to two and a half years in prison for helping bribe a witness to lie and say he'd committed a murder alone, in a failed effort to try and win the lawyer's client—the accomplice—an acquittal at trial.

John Scarpa Jr. was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison and a $10,000 fine based on his conviction in May for conspiring to bribe a witness to commit perjury during a double homicide trial of then-client Reginald Ross, according to a news release issued Monday by U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York and news reports.

The sentence was handed down by U.S. District Judge Carol Bagley Amon in Brooklyn federal court.