BOSTON — John M. Cicilline and Joseph A. Bevilacqua Jr., two names prominent among Rhode Island criminal-defense lawyers, were charged in federal court yesterday with scheming to collect $150,000 from drug-dealer clients to manipulate the criminal-justice system.

Cicilline, the brother of Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline, and Bevilacqua, the son of the late Rhode Island Supreme Court Chief Justice Joseph A. Bevilacqua, were charged, along with two legal assistants, with conspiracy, obstruction of justice and making false statements to federal authorities.

The 21-page indictment, unsealed yesterday, alleges that the lawyers conspired with interpreters/paralegals Juan A. Giraldo and Lisa Torres to provide the authorities with information about other drug dealers, which would then be used to bargain for more-lenient sentences for their clients.

In return, a husband and wife whom Cicilline and Bevilacqua defended in a federal drug and money-laundering case in Boston, John and Jacqueline Mendonca, allegedly gave them $115,000 between late 2002 and early 2004. (The remaining $35,000 sought was never paid, according to the indictment.)

Giraldo, a former interpreter, investigator and confidant of Cicilline’s and Bevilacqua’s, has been described by a federal prosecutor as a high-level drug dealer and by a judge as someone who “played the system.” Giraldo, who lived near Bevilacqua in an upscale East Greenwich development and owned a vacation condo in Cancun, Mexico, is serving a federal prison term of nearly six years after pleading guilty two years ago to charges of cocaine trafficking and tax evasion.

The indictment yesterday caps a long-running investigation, one that authorities say continues.

“Today’s charges should make it clear that justice is not for sale,” U.S. Attorney Michael J. Sullivan said in a statement. “It is especially troubling that these allegations involve lawyers — who are expected to hold to the highest ethical standards and conduct themselves with honesty and integrity.”

Torres, 39, of Cranston, was arrested at T.F. Green Airport about midnight Thursday as she returned home on a flight from the Dominican Republic. She was held without bail.

Cicilline, 49, of Cranston, learned that there was a warrant for his arrest yesterday morning and drove to Boston to surrender.

Bevilacqua, 57, was just 12 days away from completing an 18-month federal prison sentence for leaking a confidential FBI videotape to Rhode Island TV newsman Jim Taricani, a conviction that led to his disbarment. Bevilacqua had been in home confinement, and was taken into custody about noon yesterday after arriving at a new work-release job in Rhode Island; he was taken to the Barnstable County Correctional Facility in Massachusetts and is expected to be arraigned Monday.

Giraldo, 41, is in a federal prison in Youngstown, Ohio, and will be arraigned later.

All four were charged with conspiracy. Cicilline and Torres were also charged with obstruction, Cicilline with two counts of making false statements and Torres with one count of making false statements. Obstruction carries a maximum prison term of 10 years; the other charges a maximum 5 years and $250,000 fine.

Late yesterday afternoon, Cicilline stood before the judge and pleaded not guilty. He was released on $10,000 unsecured bond.

Afterward, flanked by his lawyer, Richard M. Egbert, and his father and law partner, John F. Cicilline Jr., Cicilline walked out of the courthouse and through a gauntlet of news photographers, declining comment.

The road to indictment for Cicilline and Bevilacqua began in the summer of 2002, with a celebrated drug bust outside a Motel 6 in Warwick.

Federal agents and local police seized more than $1.3 million in cash and nearly 5 pounds of marijuana from John C. Mendonca, who gave addresses in Warwick and Fall River. Mendonca and his wife, Jacqueline, were arrested, as he tried to flee in a taxi.

The Mendoncas, subsequently indicted in Boston, hired Bevilacqua and Cicilline to defend them.

In November 2002, Bevilacqua met with John Mendonca at the Plymouth County House of Correction. According to yesterday’s indictment, Bevilacqua “told him that for a payment of several hundred thousand dollars, he ... could keep John Mendonca out of jail.”

In December 2002, the indictment says, Bevilacqua and Giraldo met with Mendonca again and said that in return for an “up front” payment of $100,000, they would provide information about “a large drug bust” that Mendonca could pass on to federal authorities to help win a lighter sentence.

Later that month, Giraldo allegedly went to the home of Mendonca’s mother and collected $70,000 in cash from her and $30,000 in checks made out to Bevilacqua, Giraldo and two unidentified Giraldo associates. Giraldo told the mother that with this payment, her son “would get out of jail,” the indictment alleges.

In June 2003, with Mendonca still incarcerated and awaiting trial, Cicilline allegedly told Jacqueline Mendonca that he had spoken to Bevilacqua and Giraldo about the $100,000 payment and “reassured her that Juan Giraldo would provide information on drug activity that she and her husband would pass on to the DEA as their own in order to get a sentence reduction.”

But in November 2003, the indictment says, Cicilline asked Jacqueline for another $50,000, telling his client that he would show the money to Bevilacqua and Giraldo to induce them to provide the promised information about other drug dealers.

The indictment suggests, however, that while the Mendoncas continued to discuss the scheme to win leniency, they also began working with the authorities against their defense lawyers.

Starting with a Dec. 1, 2003, meeting that Jacqueline had with Cicilline, Bevilacqua and Giraldo in their Providence law office, the indictment quotes several conversations that were secretly recorded by the Mendoncas, and even by the federal prosecutor dealing with Cicilline on the case.

At that meeting, Jacqueline pressed the men to deliver what they had promised or return the $100,000. Giraldo told her that they would have to come up with information to help the feds make three or four drug cases to earn a reduced sentence.

“Right. The more the merrier,” says Cicilline, according to the indictment.

On Jan. 11, 2004, Bevilacqua visited John Mendonca in jail and allegedly told him that he would be “getting credit for a 900-pound marijuana bust that Juan Giraldo had arranged,” according to the indictment, plus another 1,000-pound marijuana bust that Giraldo was in the process of arranging. Giraldo had gone to Mexico, Bevilicqua allegedly said, to “initiate” the marijuana deal.

On March 5, 2004, Cicilline allegedly told Jacqueline Mendonca that he would help her misrepresent the truth to get credit for helping the authorities make a “50-kilogram cocaine bust” — “Juan’s probably got that by truck this weekend . . . We just want to make it believable.”

In another meeting, Bevilacqua allegedly told Jacqueline, “Don’t you see what [Giraldo] did with some of the money? ... He gave it up, and he set somebody up with 900 pounds of pot ... That’s what he does.”

The indictment also accuses Cicilline, Bevilacqua and Giraldo of pressuring the Mendoncas to plead guilty so that they could get credit for the bogus information on other drug deals. In one jailhouse meeting, Cicilline and Giraldo allegedly told Mendonca that they had recently “gotten someone else credit” for a 500-kilo cocaine bust, but that Mendonca would have to plead guilty to get a similar break.

Prior to a Sept. 8, 2004, meeting with the federal prosecutor on the Mendonca case, Cicilline allegedly met with Jacqueline and Torres at the Barking Crab restaurant, next to the Boston courthouse, “to rehearse what they would say.” The three then went into the courthouse and lied to the prosecutor, the indictment charges.

A few months later, in early 2005, the Mendoncas hired new lawyers, according to the court record. Last year, they pleaded guilty. Documents in their case remained sealed, however, due to “ongoing legal proceedings and other confidential matters.” They have yet to be sentenced.

Mendonca, who was released on $100,000 bail last fall and is on house arrest in Fall River, declined comment yesterday when called by a reporter.

In the spring of 2004, while Giraldo was allegedly conspiring with Cicilline and Bevilaqua in the Mendonca case, he became the target of a DEA investigation after an informant reported that he was selling large quantities of cocaine.

The informant arranged to buy a kilogram of cocaine from Giraldo for $23,000, with the DEA and Providence police monitoring the deal. Giraldo was later arrested. His lawyer, Jack Cicilline, disputed that he was a major drug dealer, attributing his prosperity to his hard work as an interpreter and his success at the blackjack tables at Foxwoods. John M. Cicilline defended Giraldo as “a good guy ... a friend.”

Yesterday, in a news conference at Providence City Hall, David Cicilline, who worked in the law office with his brother and father before running for mayor, said that he knew Giraldo, but that Giraldo didn’t work for him.“I spoke to my brother earlier this morning, told him that I loved him and I support him and that I would be there for him and his family,” said Cicilline.

With staff reports from Daniel Barbarisi and Amanda Milkovits