SUNSET PARK (AP) — The prominent defense attorney accused of arranging the murder of a witness was allowed to live in prison like the rest of the inmates over the weekend.

A judge ruled last week that Paul Bergrin, the New Jersey lawyer who represented Queen Latifah, Lil’ Kim and other rap artists, could be removed from solitary confinement.

Bergrin has been held since his arrest in May on charges of arranging the murder of one witness and trying to set up the murder of another. Last week he was indicted on additional bribery, drug and prostitution counts. A federal judge in Newark agreed to change the conditions of Bergrin’s confinement.

He is being held in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. He argued that solitary confinement limited his access to his attorney

Bergrin, once a federal prosecutor who worked for the same office that now is prosecuting him, pleaded not guilty in June to charges of murder, conspiracy and racketeering. He allegedly was caught on a wiretap telling someone to kill a potential witness in a Monmouth County drug case and “make it look like a robbery.�

A superseding indictment against Bergrin was unsealed last week after a court hearing in which Yolanda Jauregui, who was arrested with Bergrin in May, was charged with selling $35,000 worth of cocaine to an undercover agent while she was out on bail.

The new indictment alleges Bergrin and Jauregui schemed to pay a man identified as “M.P.� $2,500 to lie on the witness stand in a trial in which Bergrin represented a man accused of armed robbery.

The two also allegedly sought to murder a witness in 2008 who was to testify against Bergrin in a prostitution case in New York. Bergrin was charged in the May indictment with setting up the murder of one witness and trying to arrange the murder of another as part of a racketeering conspiracy.

Jauregui had not been charged with racketeering until last Tuesday. She did not speak during the hearing, but attorney Christopher Adams said she would plead not guilty.

U.S. Magistrate Madeline Cox-Arleo denied Adams’ request to have Jauregui released on bail subject to electronic monitoring.

According to Assistant U.S. Attorney John Gay, Bergrin, Jauregui and others used a property Bergrin owned in Newark as a “stash house� for large quantities of cocaine awaiting distribution.

“Hundreds of kilograms of cocaine� were sold from 2005 to 2009, Gay told the judge. Fifty-three kilograms were seized at the address in May, he said.

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